Fragments from my installation shown at the recently concluded @plus234art
These works are built from old BUHU trade sacks ,materials that once carried grain, cement, and goods across Northern Nigeria.
The sacks remember numbers, names, routes. Systems of trade. Systems of movement.
But inside those systems were always people.
These small works are about that tension ,the human presence pressing through coded surfaces. Eyes looking back through materials that once reduced lives to marks and measurements.
Not about spectacle. Just a quiet witness to the present moment in the North.
My installation “STRUCTURE OF MEMORY” is showing at @plus234art by @sotogallery
I didn’t hang works on a wall ,I built something you have to stand inside. BUHU sacks stretched across the ceiling like weight. Faces pushing through ,not portraits, not decoration but presence.
Raffia spilling down like memory refusing to stay buried.
This is not about violence.
This is what remains after.
What lingers.
What watches.
What refuses to disappear.
If you come close, don’t rush it.
Stand under it.
You’ll understand.
A big thank you to the entire team who made my vision a reality.
My Gallerist, @alimustgo
The curator @mofe_i who trusted my vision,
My Dealer @chyk_ambush who is my brother
@plus234art . It opened today.
10YEARS SOBER!
A quiet victory I don’t talk about enough,staying. Staying in the fire without numbing it. Staying sharp while the world blurs itself out. Ten years of choosing clarity over escape, discipline over ease. It’s not loud, it’s not pretty, but it’s mine. And it’s one of the things I’m most proud of.
One of the standout installations at +234 Art Fair 2026 is Structure of Memory, a special immersive booth project by Kaduna based artist @barasketchbook .
Working with reclaimed jute sacks once used to transport grain, goods, and labour across Northern Nigeria, Bara builds a layered environment of faces, markings, codes, and stitched surfaces. These materials carry traces of movement, exchange, and forgotten lives, turning ordinary objects into records of history.
Through walls, ceilings, and clustered forms, the installation reflects on memory, loss, and what remains unseen. Each stitched surface holds fragments of personal and collective pasts, asking how stories survive displacement, insecurity, and time.
March 5 to 8
Ecobank Pan African Centre
Join us at +234 Art Fair.
—-
#plus234artfair #plus234artfair2026 #inclusivity #contemporaryart #nigerianart
Lagos.
I’m stepping in with a special immersive installation.
Not a viewing. An experience.
March 5 — 8th
+234 Art Fair
The work is breathing. The ceiling is watching.
If you get it, you get it.
Pull up.
— Bara Sketchbook
(STRAIGHT OUTTA KD)
Some commissions feel like destiny.
Forged in heat.
Crowned in steel.
Wrapped in hide.
Kaduna raised us different.
Son of the soil 🤝 Son of the soil.
@balaye
No sentiment.
Just power.
Ten years sober this March.
Not nostalgia but residue.
Heat without pain.
Tremor without worship.
What the night couldn’t erase, I painted.
I stayed. My face outlived it.
My Face That Outlived the Night.
Harmattan cold.
Sober, restless, grateful.
No rush left to chase ,
just fire learning how to stay.
The body remembers.
My face remains.
“The Face that outlived the Night.”
