I am building the archive that should have existed. Centuries of African civilisation, never recorded by the people who controlled the record. I am completing the canon, one painting at a time.
I grew up surrounded by stories. My English teacher, the writer Kola Tubosun, showed me what words could do. By secondary school, I was writing constantly. Fiction, essays, anything to capture what I saw in my head.
Then my laptop broke. No money to fix it. So I picked up leftover pens and A4 paper from my parents' house and started drawing. It wasn't a pivot. It was survival. Somewhere in those early sketches, I found a new dialect for the same language.
I taught myself how to draw with a mouse on Photoshop. Studied the neoclassical painters, Jacque-Louis David, Norman Rockwell, and fused their technique with the mythology I had grown up hearing. African folklore, Yoruba cosmology, stories of gods and mortals.
In 2021, I dropped out of Chemical Engineering at Covenant University to commit to the work full-time. The studio is in Lagos. The work moves between the screen, the canvas, and the foundry in Benin. Oil and acrylic on canvas. A mouse on Photoshop. Bronze, marble, the patinated surface as argument.
The technique is inseparable from the philosophy. Every painting carries the texture of survival: cracked, layered, patinated. Not as aesthetic choice but as argument. The surface says: this has endured. This was always here. You just were not shown it.
Three temporal axes. One archive. Past reconstructed, present documented, future projected.
The Western canon has thousands of paintings of European kings, Roman senators, Greek gods. The African archive of equivalent complexity is almost empty. Not because the civilisation did not exist, but because the record-keepers were colonisers. I am painting the figures whose visual record was erased, in the monumental register the Western canon kept for its own. Courts, ceremonies, the brothers of Odùduwà. The orisha as they were always meant to be seen.
A Lagos wedding. A bridesmaid in the half-light before the vows. The aunty in her geles, holding the room. I document this city the way Norman Rockwell documented his, with the seriousness it deserves. The present is the part of the record that goes missing fastest. Every painting is also a witness statement. THE WEDDING, 2025: twenty-four portraits and three marble sculptures. The largest body I have ever staged.
The surface is the argument. Cracked, layered, patinated, as though a future civilisation excavated it from beneath the silt. Afrofuture is not a setting; it is a stance. The work is made to look like it has already survived. To say to the century ahead: we were here, we are here, we will have been here. Three volumes of Afrodigital on SuperRare. Pixel as the next link in the chain.
Not mythology. Cosmology. A knowledge of the universe with its own structure, its own physics, its own court. I paint them with the seriousness Renaissance Italy painted its saints. The framework is older than the canon that ignored it. The work returns it to scale.
Identity here is not a theme. It is the ground the painting stands on. A boy in Lagos and a girl in Brooklyn read the same myth the same morning. The diaspora is one room with many doors. I paint for the room, not the door. The figures look back at the viewer, frontal, composed, refusing to be studied.
The future tense of a civilisation that was told it had no past. I make work that looks like it has already survived, so that what comes next has somewhere to begin. Each civilisation builds its archive in the medium of its time. Manuscripts. Frescoes. Bronze. Oil. Print. Pixel. Digital is the medium that travels furthest. That is why I still work in it.
Where the work is made. Where the materials come from. What stays the artist's hand even as the work scales. The studio in Lagos, the foundry in Benin, the quarry in Carrara, the signature on the back.
One room with high windows and bad reception. Canvases lean against the walls in the order they will be finished. The light is honest in the morning and ruthless by noon. Every painting begins here, and most stay until they are ready to leave.
Digital then oil and acrylic on canvas, layered slowly. The surface should look as if it had endured something to arrive. Some paintings take a month. Some take eight. Each canvas is finished by hand. Each surface is cracked and patinated until it looks like it has already survived.
The bronze is cast in Benin City, by smiths whose families have been pouring metal for centuries. Lost-wax casting. Hand-finished. The patina is set, not poured. Every edition number is stamped under the base by the smith who finished it.
Tolani was cut from a single block of Italy Carrara white marble. Selected for grain, shipped, carved. The same quarry Michelangelo used. The block leaves Carrara as stone. It arrives anywhere as a body.
Every edition is hand-numbered and signed by the artist. The certificate is hand-stamped. The crate is hand-packed. The work is finished before it leaves the studio. Where a machine could have done it, the hand does it instead.
Yemisi Shyllon Museum of Art, Pan-Atlantic University. No Victor, No Vanquished. The first digital painting in the museum's collection.
Private collections: Cynthia Erivo, Tunji Balogun, JAE5, PleasrDAO.
Eight solo exhibitions. Lagos and Abuja.
THE WEDDING, 2025. Twenty-four portraits, three marble sculptures.
Finalist, 2025 Chizi Wigwe Prize for African Futurism.
Meta. Marvel. Psyonix / Epic Games. Zerion.
Adekunle Gold. Young Jonn. Masego. Dave. BNXN. Simi. Blaqbonez. Show Dem Camp.
Five volumes, including Ṣàngó and Oya on a US imprint.
Three volumes of Afrodigital on SuperRare.
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Ten percent of every sale funds the next. The fund makes grants to emerging Nigerian artists, the ones at the beginning, before the first show, before the first sale, when the laptop has broken and there is no money to fix it. I have been that artist. Every painting bought here funds a painter you have not heard of yet.
"I grew up surrounded by stories. The canon was incomplete. I am completing it, one painting, one sculpture, one volume at a time. The next generation will grow up surrounded by mine."
The Studio works with collectors around the world, and takes great care in the production and delivery of each work. Below you will find answers to the most common questions about the paintings, prints, sculptures, ordering, shipping, and studio policies.
Paintings begin digitally in Photoshop and are realised either as fine art prints or, in the case of Originals, painted directly onto canvas in oil and acrylic. Sculptures are developed digitally before being cast in bronze or carved in marble at the foundry. Every piece is finished by hand in the Lagos studio before it leaves for its collector.
Originals are unique works, made once and never reproduced. They include the paintings on canvas and the one-of-one sculptures. Editions are limited runs of prints and sculpture multiples, each numbered and signed by hand. Once an edition sells out, it is not reprinted.
Every piece ships with a certificate of authenticity issued by the studio's provenance team, confirming the title of the work, its edition number where applicable, and the artist's signature. Originals are signed on the work itself; editions carry a hand-numbered seal.
Originals are available on a first come, first serve basis. Visit Register Collector Interest to enter the studio's list. Registered names are honoured in the order they arrive. The studio writes back by hand within forty-eight hours.
Paintings and prints should be kept out of direct sunlight and away from heat sources. Wipe lightly with a soft, dry cloth. Bronze and marble sculptures can be dusted gently with a microfibre cloth. Detailed care notes are included with each work when it ships.
Yes. The studio ships internationally using a network of trusted global logistics partners. Shipping costs are calculated at checkout based on destination and delivery service. Collectors across North America, Europe, Africa, and Asia regularly receive works from the studio.
All orders are fulfilled and dispatched from Lagos, Nigeria, where Anthony's studio is based.
Many pieces are produced on demand, meaning they are carefully manufactured after your order is placed. Production typically takes 2 to 3 weeks, after which the work is prepared for shipment. International delivery times vary depending on location and shipping provider, but most orders arrive within 3 to 5 weeks from the date of purchase.
Once your piece has been completed and dispatched, you will receive a confirmation email with your tracking information. You can also visit studio.anthonyazekwoh.com to look up an order at any time. If the tracking link has not yet updated, the parcel may still be in transit between regional logistics hubs. This usually resolves once it reaches the next checkpoint. For any update, the team is available at sales@anthonyazekwoh.com.
Please contact sales@anthonyazekwoh.com within 48 hours of delivery with clear photographs of the packaging and the piece. The team will resolve the issue as quickly as possible, by replacement, repair, or refund, and arrange a return where required.
Still have questions? Reach out directly at sales@anthonyazekwoh.com