Nike Art Gallery Abuja
As part of efforts to improve Nigeria’s arts and cultural heritage, Nike Arts recently commissioned a new gallery in the city of Abuja. It is a massive art gallery and one of the best in the country. The founder, Nike Okundaye said art provides therapeutic and decorative value and is a good source of investment
According to her, Abuja is a city that people love to visit, so she decided to build the gallery when she got the permit Last year July. It is an art center in Abuja for traditional and non-traditional artworks including indigo dying and sculpting, and also non-traditional arts.
Nike has given workshops on traditional Nigerian textiles to audiences in the US and Europe during the past 20 years. While she is known for her colorful batik and paintings that offers a modernist gloss on traditional themes, she was brought up amidst the traditional weaving and dying practiced in her native village of Ogidi in Western Nigeria. Her fame as an artist and teacher has taken her all over the globe. Now, she invites you to visit her in Nigeria and immerse yourself in African tradition.
Nike found that the traditional methods of weaving and dying that had been her original inspiration were fading in Nigeria. She used her international success to launch a cultural revival, building art centers where young Nigerians master traditional arts and crafts. You can now visit the world of the Yoruba, to explore a culture that has flourished in Western Nigeria for well over 1000 years.
Whether you are a specialist in the arts, an enthusiast of African arts, or merely interested in a brief immersion in a new culture, Nike offers the opportunity to see Nigeria with fresh eyes. You stay at guest houses at her homes in Lagos, Oshogbo, and Ogidi. You travel through Nigeria in air-conditioned cars and buses with your guides and teachers. You spend your days visiting museums, galleries, and traditional markets, or studying the techniques Yoruba craftsmen and artists use. You join her family and her apprentices at mealtimes to sample Nigerian specialties.