Peju Alatise
Rapture Project 2013.
About:
Born in 1975 in the Nigerian city Lagos, Peju and her seven siblings were raised within a fairly traditional Muslim family. Her younger brother Layi recalls how his siblings would often grapple with their father’s religiosity.
Rapture Project, 2013.
He says Peju in particular would clash with him and other adults on topics ranging from philosophical approaches to life, to politics and religious beliefs.
Orange go to Heaven.
A young Peju was also shaped by her observations on the role of women in Nigerian society, increasingly questioning the status quo.
Desperately Labake.
The installations she creates today using materials such as cloth, beads, wood, cement and resin are a departure from her early technically skilled paintings. Peju remembers how this transition was originally rejected by what she describes as a self-appointed pseudo-intellectual art elite in Nigeria. She was advised by well-known Nigerian art curators to “stick to painting”, she says.
Smoke and Ashes.
She has been heavily influenced by her ethnicity with references to Yoruba mythology commonly found in her work.
