PAINTER TIMI KAKANDAR
“I use colour as a visual language to narrate cultural stories, embracing the spontaneity that brings each piece to life.”
Timi Kakandar is a Nigerian artist whose practice explores cultural memory, identity, adornment, and transformation through vibrant, textile-inspired painting, drawing, and collage. His recent works present richly layered figures rendered in luminous, expressive color, where elaborate sculptural hairstyles, symbolic objects, and gestural mark-making become metaphors for ancestry, self-fashioning, and collective memory. Through dynamic surfaces and evocative symbolism, his paintings celebrate African beauty, cultural continuity, and the enduring power of personal and communal identity.
Since graduating from the University of Port Harcourt in 1999, Kakandar has sustained a studio practice for over two decades. His paintings are distinguished by bold palettes, elaborate headdresses, and layered patterns that merge colonial opulence with indigenous creativity.
Figures are often set against calm, minimal backdrops, heightening their presence and resilience. Through gesture, adornment, and gaze, his portraits embody both historical continuity and contemporary authority, affirming elegance as a language of power.
He uses portraiture to explore cultural memory, adornment, and transformation, revealing the strength, beauty, and complexity of contemporary African identity
Timi Kakandar turns to the Efik dancers, painting the origin of their attire and the movement that defines it. On canvas, gestural strokes hold seductive dance postures caught mid-motion. The work traces cultural memory through the body — fabric, gesture, and rhythm become a record of heritage as it unfolds.
Timi Kakandar captures the essence of his models on his canvasses from his studio space in Lagos. This piece is titled ‘Spade 2’, part of his card series painting.
Regal Reverie is a back view of an Efik dancer in a colourful attire in motion.
EXHIBITIONS
Kakandar’s work has been widely collected and exhibited internationally. He has presented seven solo exhibitions and participated in more than thirty group shows across Nigeria and abroad. In 2021, he was recognized in Saatchi Art’s Next Generation of Master Artists (USA). His recent exhibitions include Entwined (Alexis Galleries at National Museum, Lagos, 2023), Harlem Fine Arts Fair (New York, 2024), Cutting Edge (Ogirikan gallery at National Museum, Lagos, 2024), Rising Africa Art (Zero Prive Art Gallery, Lagos, 2025), and Dialogues from the Past and Present (Solo Exhibition, Abuja, 2025).
In March 2026, his work was featured in the group exhibition What Fabric Holds at KUNSThouse H3o Gallery, Zürich, Switzerland. On March 28, 2026, he also opened his solo exhibition Efik Elegance: Onyonyo and the Art of Adornment at Quintessence Art Gallery, Lagos, Nigeria.
AUCTIONS
ArtHouse Contemporary Art Auction Lagos, Nigeria. (2020)
Aspire Art Auction, South Africa (2022) ARTSY online Auction (2022)
He works and resides in Lagos. He is a dedicated member of the Lagos Chapter of the Society of Nigerian Artists (SNA).
