"Abatan is not an artist in exile: his art is born at home, from the Yoruba Àṣà."
Olamilekan Abatan, known as Lekan, was born in Lagos, Nigeria, on February 7, 1997. He is considered one of the leading figures of Nigerian hyperrealism and, in the words of art historian Priscilla Manfren, an "intersection artist": a meeting point between worlds, styles and continents in the globalized art scene.
His works combine charcoal and pencil drawing of extraordinary precision with traditional African wax print fabrics, which he cuts and applies to the paper as backgrounds and decorative elements. The contrast between the three-dimensional rendering of the drawn figures and the vivid two-dimensionality of the textiles has become the signature of his practice. For Abatan, a passionate observer of fashion, wax fabrics are not mere decoration but semiophores: carriers of meaning, memory and cultural pride, through which he contributes to the international visibility of African textile heritage.
Abatan began drawing professionally in 2017, after completing his studies in visual arts. His early production, rooted in African culture and Black empowerment, includes the Hope series and vibrant market scenes such as OJO AJE / Monday, inspired by the Obanikoro market in Lagos. In 2019 he created My Life, his first successful synthesis of hyperrealist drawing and wax fabric, and made his exhibition debut with In the Making at Retro Africa in Abuja, followed in 2020 by Re:Mediation at the African Artists' Foundation in Lagos, dedicated to the restitution of African artistic heritage. Works such as the Tribal Mark series, the My Ancestors Wear trilogy and the portraits Omozuwa and Ronke Shonde address Yoruba identity, the legacy of colonialism, police brutality and violence against women, with a sensitivity that deliberately refuses any eroticization of the female body.
Since 2021 his research has entered into dialogue with the great masters of European art. Fascinated above all by Caravaggio, whose chiaroscuro and theatricality he studies and metabolizes, Abatan creates Africanized reinterpretations of iconic compositions by Leonardo, Michelangelo, Perugino, Mantegna, Rubens and Jacques-Louis David, placing the Black figure at the center of global art history. His neo-pop insertions, a Netflix tablet in Samson and Delilah, fast food in Last Supper and Better Destiny, a MacBook as the forbidden fruit, transform irony into social critique of consumerism, digital alienation and contemporary vanity.
In 2024 his work The Next Move was exhibited in Strategic Interplay: African Art and Imagery in Black and White at the Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio, and acquired for the museum's permanent collection. In 2025 Black Liquid Art Gallery dedicated to him the solo exhibition ÀAÀ, Àwòrán Aláṣejù Àṣà. Olamilekan Abatan and the African Neo-Baroque, curated by Antonella Pisilli and accompanied by a catalogue published by Gangemi Editore with essays by Moyo Okediji and Priscilla Manfren. His works are held in international public and private collections.
