With 700 portraits, this NFT artist captured the global lockdown
The doors to the exhibition halls of Gallery B57 are open a few streets away from Eko Atlantic City, revealing a black and white portrait of Instagram Influencer, Sanchan.
During the global lockdown last year, Ade Adekola, a Nigerian-born international visual artist, put out an open call on Instagram for people interested in having their photographs turned into portraits.
He opened a sign-up form with the intention of doing 30 portraits, but when he returned two hours later, the number of requests had surpassed 80. To avoid being overburdened, he had to end the call right away.
He was able to improve his creative process by developing new techniques that helped him optimize the way he worked while creating the portraits—all 80 of them. He took the original photographs shared by interested parties and stripped them of all colors, resulting in black and white images.
He then engraved them before shading, cutting, and coloring them. Getting this process just right, combined with the overwhelmingly positive feedback he received from his 80 muses, encouraged him to create more portraits.
Adekola created 700 portraits in total, but only 40 portraits with striking designs and a collage of all 700 portraits are on display in the gallery’s exhibition halls.
The allure of the 40 portraits on display was enhanced by presenting them in lightboxes, which Adekola chose for their unique poses, circumstance, or personal resonance to the subject.
His project, now titled Lockdown Portraits, would later become a component of his exhibition, Dislocation &… Anthology of an African Wedding and Diaspora Axis are also included.
Opening up dialogue for people who are dislocated
Dislocation &… is an exhibition featuring NFT art, 3D textiles, and augmented reality, as well as events on social media and other digital collaborative platforms featuring creators from Tokyo, Israel, and Singapore.
The exhibition’s artworks were conceived, executed, and completed during the year-long lockdown, exploring and amplifying the effects of dislocation on humanity.
Adekola used a mix of different nationalities to create Diaspora Axis, a textile design. Ade set out to empower people who had dual or multiple nationalities and were unsure of their “true identities.”
“So, from a disability standpoint, the inspiration for the anthology series is people who had an emotional roadmap, and that roadmap was truncated.” I simply open the door for you to enter and consider what may or may not have occurred.”
An Israeli company used the design to create and display dresses. Over 70 design patterns are shown to customers in 3D. “When you buy it, they send you the physical garment, all cut,” Adekola explained.
According to Adekola, a pandemic is a type of dislocation. “I’m trying to explore the different kinds of dislocation forces.” As a result, the pandemic is a type of dislocation in which people are isolated for an extended period of time.”
Purchasing emotional entanglement from Africa
The collection Anthology of an African Wedding investigates dislocation through the lens of emotional entanglement in Yoruba wedding cultures. The Yoruba people are from the southwest region of Nigeria, and their wedding culture is colorful, vibrant, and extravagant in many ways.
The Anthology of an African Wedding collection, which can be viewed using augmented reality, brings viewers one step closer to experiencing a Yoruba wedding, complete with traditional gowns, headgear, and rings.
Adekola has been using Photoshop for over 20 years to develop his art, creating over 20,000 texture designs that he used to create Anthology of an African Wedding.
Anthology of an African Wedding, which is also available as an NFT on OpenSea, consists of 18 art pieces, 9 of which depict traditional wedding scenes and 9 of which depict white wedding scenes.
The exhibition Dislocation &… is on display at Gallery B57 until December 1st.
