A Conversation with Wole Lagunju

'Episode Forty-Six features Wole Lagunju. He is a 1986 graduate of Fine arts and graphic design at the University of Ife, now Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria. Lagunju’s hybrid paintings of traditional Gelede masks which are juxtaposed with images of the modern woman in the Western world redefine the forms and philosophies of Yoruba visual art and design. He reimagines and transforms cultural icons appropriated from the Dutch Golden, Elizabethan as well as the fifties and sixties, Euro-American eras. Lagunju’s cultural references, mined from the eras of colonization and decolonization of the African continent critique the racial and social structures of the 19th century whilst evoking commentaries on power, femininity and womanhood. Wole Lagunju has exhibited widely in Nigeria, United States, Trinidad and Germany. Recent exhibitions include: Yoruba Remixed, Ebonycurated Gallery, Cape Town (Solo Exhibition) 2018, Wole Lagunju: African Diaspora Artist and Transnational Visuality, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, Virginia (Solo Exhibition) 2014, Womanscape: Race, Gender and Sexuality in African Art, University of Texas, Austin Texas, 2011. Wole was awarded a Phillip Ravenhill Fellowship by the UCLA in 2006 and a Pollock Krasner award in 2009. He lives in the United States.'