ARTISTS_PROFILE Peju Layiwola

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ARTIST'S PROFILE

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Artist's Profile
Peju Layiwola

Peju Layiwola, was born in Benin City, Edo State of Nigeria. Her father, Babatunde Olatokunbo Olowu hails from the Isale-Eko Area of Lagos State but settled in Benin City. Her paternal grandfather was a business magnate who introduced the first cinema into the old Western Region. Some of the ‘Olowu’ cinemas known as Luzo, Premier and Wayside flourished in the 1960’s and were located in Benin, Sapele and Warri. Her mother, Princess Elizabeth Olowu, is a renowned artist and daughter of Oba Akenzua II of Benin.

Peju Layiwola attended St Maria Goretti College between 1977 and 1979 and then completed her secondary school training at the Federal Government Girls’ College, Benin in 1982.

She was admitted into the University of Benin, Nigeria to study Fine/Applied Arts and graduated as the Best Applied Arts student of the Department in 1988 with a BA honours degree in Metal Design (Jewellery and Metal Smithing). In 1991, she obtained an MA in Visual Arts from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria and later in 2004, a PhD from the same University. She has won several awards, amongst which are the departmental prize of the Fine/Applied Arts, University of Benin in 1987 and the NYSC Merit Award, Lagos State 1988. She was on the staff of the University of Benin between 1991 and 1995, University of Lagos in 2002-, and was on sabbatical leave at the University of Ibadan between 2008-2009.

She has had several art exhibitions within and outside Nigeria. In 2003, she had a joint show with her mother, titled Of Bronzes and Prints: A Mother/Daughter Perspective, at the Goethe Institut, Lagos. She was selected with seven other contemporary female artists in Nigeria by the Pan-African University, Lagos to exhibit under the title, Identities and Labels: Eight Contemporary Nigerian Women Artists. Outside Nigeria, she has had three solo shows in the UK and Ireland and two group shows in the United States of America, namely Peju Layiwola and Rackhi Diankha: an Exhibition of Two Female African Artists at the Mbari Center, Washington DC, and Out of Bounds: Women Artists from Africa at the University of New England, Westbrook College, Maine in 2003 and 2004 respectively.

She has attended several academic conferences and workshops in the arts as facilitator and participant. In 1996, she demonstrated in the Experimental Bronze Age Casting Project, Sculpture Society of Ireland, Armagh, Northern Ireland, and has, in the last six years, taught Bronze Casting and Jewelry at the most regular and famous art workshop in Nigeria known as the Harmattan Workshop in the Niger Delta Cultural Centre, Agbarha-Otor, Delta State. Her interactions at this workshop have impacted greatly on her art and brought her in contact with printmaking techniques.

In 2003, the Broken Memory project was initiated. Alongside the Nobel laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka and five other international scholars involved with this Project initiated by Bernard Muller of the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), she gave the History Seminar at the University of Zurich, Switzerland in 2005. The project provided the basis for further work on Benin and later became a published chapter in the 535-page exhibition catalogue and book titled Benin Kings and Rituals: Court Arts from Nigeria.

This exhibition, which was shown in four countries over a two-year period, was brought to a close in September 2008 with her lecture on Edo Art and the Reconstruction of Memory at The Art Institute of Chicago, USA. In Vienna, she conducted the children’s Art and Craft workshop at the Museum fur Volkerkunde, Vienna, Austria.

In 2006, she was a Laureate of the Gender Institute Dakar, Senegal. She attended the Yari Yari Pamberi Conference: ‘Black Women Writers Dissecting Globalization,’ and the ‘International Conference on Literature by Women of African Ancestry’, New York University, in 2004. As part of the African Studies Program, she presented a Sandwich Seminar in 2008 at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA.

Peju Layiwola has worked on several art projects such The Cultural Heritage of Nigeria project Barcelona, Spain; and the ‘Nigerian/Hellenic Images’ project Embassy of Greece in Nigeria. She was also a member of the UNESCO team on ‘Nigeria and its Environment’ project 2007. She is founder of the Women and Youth Art Foundation with a mission to empower the youths through the arts.

She has served on the jury of several art competitions such as the Spanish Art Competition May 2007, French Art Competition South-Western Zone, Alliance Francaise, Ibadan, 2008, French Art Competition National, Alliance Francaise, Enugu, 2008, and the Centre for Black and African Arts and Civilization (CBAAC). She is actively involved in several committees and boards of the University of Lagos.

Peju Layiwola can be best described as a versatile artist who has vast experience in metal casting, metal smithing, jewellery and printmaking. She combines studio practice with a strong commitment to research work.