Hanya ( road in Hausa)
Wood Assembly Relief
45 x 40 x 5cm
2026
Hanya (road in Hausa) examines fracture and becoming as a condition of identity, where selfhood is not represented but continuously assembled through motion and material negotiation.
The horseman functions as a cultural mnemonic within Hausa/Fulani nomadic heritage, embodying mobility, status, and historical continuity, yet here is recontextualised within structures that simultaneously frame and destabilise it.
Fragmentation operates not as loss but as a semiotic system: wood, repair, and rupture articulate a material epistemology, similar to broken english (new formed linguistic intervention ) , where matter retains and transforms its historical agency.
The work ultimately negotiates the tension between tradition and transformation, memory and construction, freedom and institutional framing, as the journey persistently exceeds its ornamental and constructed boundaries.
Babban Riga
Wood Assembly Relief
80 x 70 x 7 cm
2026
Babban Riga (a robe of honour) is a wood assembly Relief that interrogates the history and contemporary condition of Arewa, employing the garment as a signifier of presence, status, and inherited authority. Traditionally rendered in richly embroidered textiles, it is here reconstituted through (katako) discarded wood where rupture and fragmentation replace continuity and refinement. In doing so, the work destabilises conventional associations of prestige, prompting critical reflection on the relationship between material, dignity, and cultural identity within contexts of historical and socio-political struggle.
The work operates within a dialectic of shame and pride, reflecting an estranged yet enduring relationship with systems of power. This tension is articulated through the faceless figure, in which absence functions not as loss but as a site of becoming an unstable locus shaped by the intersection of British and Nigerian heritage.
Situated within the framework of diasporic discourse, the work engages the notion of a “third space,” wherein identity is neither fixed nor singular but assembled through fragmented memory, partial cultural knowledge, and the residual imposition of external classifications. The material logic of assemblage mirrors this condition: the reconfiguration of the discarded into forms of renewed significance. In this context, value is neither inherent nor universally legible, but contingent and culturally situated. The work ultimately asserts that conceptions of wealth and honour, while differently articulated across geographies, are not diminished by their divergence from dominant Western paradigms
Moment of Redeconstruction
Wood Assembly Relief
80 × 60 × 15 cm
2026
Moment of Redeconstruction examines the persistent tendency to reconstruct the very systems we seek to escape. Shaped by forces that precede us like authority, status, and economic structures, attempts at autonomy often reinscribe the conditions they resist. Identity emerges not as fixed, but as a continual process of dismantling and reformation.
Through fractured perspectives, shifting depth, and spatial instability, the work unsettles perception, blurring the distinction between what is constructed and what is understood as real. It reflects the biased lens through which we navigate individuality, exposing the tension between self-definition and systemic influence.
“Moment of Redeconstruction” captures this condition as both embodied and psychological: a suspended state in which collapse and reconstruction occur simultaneously, and without resolution.
Yeah I am good (A Silent Struggle)
Wood Assembly Relief
10 x 15 x 4cm
2026
Yeah I am good (A Silent Struggle) is an art work providing commentary on the performative stoicism Men carry as a badge of honour. It asks the viewer to look past the golden perimeter and witness the weight of the silence within, a reminder that even the most structured facades cannot indefinitely hold the pressure of a soul in shards.
Explored as a physical autopsy of the “standard reply”that reflexive, hollow assurance offered when the internal scaffolding of a man’s mental health begins to buckle. In Yeah I Am Good a silent struggle , I have dismantled the traditional gilt-wood frame, long a symbol of societal stability and “the finished man,” to expose the jagged architecture of a quiet collapse.
At the heart of the piece is the fragmented “thumbs-up,” rendered not in flesh, but in splintered plywood and industrial adhesives. It is a violent, poetic dissonance: an icon of resilience that is literally falling apart, yet still desperately performing the gesture of being “fine.” By stripping away the protective canvas, I am highlighting the lack of a perceived safe space for masculine vulnerability; when there is no sanctuary for the struggle, the man must exist in a state of perpetual, raw exposure.
Ki sauka lafiya
(Hausa for may you arrive safely(female))
Wood Assembly Relief Sculpture
110 x 80 x 7cm
2026
Ki sauka lafiya is a wood assembly relief sculpture work, that interrogates identity as an ongoing and contingent process, shaped through labour, migration, and memory. Centred on the figure of a woman carrying a basket, it invokes the act of bearing and transmitting cultural heritage, wherein the basket functions as a vessel for history, tradition, and lived experience.
As this passage unfolds, fragments are unavoidably lost, suggesting the impossibility of wholly preserving cultural memory. What remains is gathered and reconstituted, pointing to a subjectivity formed through both inheritance and absence.
The material labour of assembling the figure parallels the conceptual labour of negotiating identity with in conditions of movement and instability, where structure and fragmentation exist in dynamic tension.
Presented as a freeze-frame, the work adopts the language of monumentality,not as a claim to permanence, but as a provisional arrest within a continuous process of becoming.
Emotional Defence Mechanism
Mixed media (Wood Assembly Relief)
50 × 45 × 8 cm
2025
Emotional Defence Mechanism
is a wood assembly Relief work, engaging with the collapse of structure through a language of restraint, where defence operates as both condition and response. The fragmented frame establishes an unstable field of perception, suggesting that what we see is constructed and mediated, challenging fixed hierarchies of representation.
The arrow functions as both vector and barrier, introducing distance, control, and precision, while a partial body with closed lips signals silence and internalised pressure. Constructed from discarded wood a material translation of my newspaper sculpture, mimicking paper folds, the work draws on the material logic of media, where fragments reconstruct meaning and shape what is understood as truth.
the work also operates within a post-Duchampian lineage, where the arrow functions not as representation but as a system directing, interrupting, and structuring meaning. As both mechanism and gesture, it introduces urgency and control, aligning with Beuys’ understanding of material as a carrier of social and psychological force.
Structured Liberation
(Wood Assembly Relief)
44 × 40 x 4cm
2026
Structured Liberation: is a wood assembled relief depicting a bird of prey, constructed from wood fragments that visually echo torn newspaper, merging organic material with references to mediated information. The bird historically a symbol of power and freedom, appears here as a composite form, assembled from pieces that suggest the fragmentation of narrative and authority.
The surrounding frame functions as an architectural device, representing the structures through which meaning, power, and symbolism are produced. By situating the bird within this constructed boundary, the work interrogates the relationship between freedom and control, revealing how symbols of authority are shaped, circulated, and sustained through the systems that contain them.
Autopsy of an Empire
Wood Assembly Relief
50 x 40 x 6cm
2026
Autopsy of an Empire
Constructed from fragments of wood arranged to resemble a newspaper sculpture, the portrait dissects the image of Queen Elizabeth II as both monarch and symbol. The work treats the figure as a body through which empire can be examined, questioning the uneasy coexistence of historical reverence and contemporary moral positioning. In fragmenting the monarch’s image, the piece reflects on how the past continues to structure the present.
katako (Hausa for Discarded Wood)
Wood
65 x 42 x 3 cm
2026
Katako (Hausa for Discarded wood) is a self-portrait constructed through assemblage and representation. It examines identity as something built under pressure, formed through constraint, repetition, and imposed structure.
The figure emerges from fragmented, rigid materials arranged vertically, suggesting a body held together rather than whole. These standardised, utilitarian elements reference systems that shape identity from the outside: social expectations, inherited frameworks, and environments that demand conformity. The body is present but compressed, assembled within limits it does not fully control.
The ornate wooden frame functions as both container and authority. Decorative and historical, it evokes tradition, domestic inheritance, and preservation, while simultaneously acting as a site of confinement. Within the frame, torn surfaces, exposed layers, and visible fastenings disrupt the illusion of stability. This contrast emphasises the tension between outward presentation and internal reality.
Katako ( discarded wood) operates as a self-portrait built on structure, asserts its presence within restriction and acknowledges the self as something continually assembled inside frames that are inherited, imposed, and sometimes resisted.
Gyara (To repair)
Mixed (Oil on Canvas x wood)
120 x 75cm
2026
Gyara (to repair in Hausa language)is part of the Disposable Monument series, which investigates monumentality in a moment of systemic collapse and ongoing political and social violence. Operating as both image and object, the painting merges classical reference with contemporary instability. Its frame is assembled from fractured ornamental elements and reconfigured into the form of a makeshift military stretcher, transforming a structure of display into one of emergency support.
The ornamental fragments reference institutional histories of value, memory, and protection, while their displacement exposes the erosion of those promises. The depicted interior evokes spaces of cultural authorities like museums, historic homes, or repositories of heritage, rendered luxurious yet vacant. This emptiness reflects the hollowing out of institutions that continue to perform prestige while failing to provide care, refuge, or accountability.
Constructed using mixed media, including ripped transfer paper on canvas, the surface bears visible damage and instability. Rather than functioning as a permanent monument, the work exists as a provisional structure supported, compromised, and responsive to a world in sustained emergency. It questions what it means to preserve history when the systems meant to uphold it are falling themselves
