Taiye Idahor

Taiye Idahor was born in 1984 in Lagos, Nigeria, where she currently lives and works.  Idahor works in collage, drawing, sculpture, and mixed media. In 2007, she graduated from the Yaba College of Technology in Lagos with a Fine Arts diploma, specialising in sculpture.

As an artist, her work explores the complexities of identity, both as an African and a female through a focus on hair; reading into its  symbolic reflections on globalisation, inequality, history, tradition and memory.

Her focus on hair speaks of a connection with family, lineage and ancestry. Through the surreal imagery employed, Idahor allows for regeneration and self-identification.

Her first solo exhibition, Hairvolution, was held at the Whitespace Gallery in Lagos in 2014 and is due to mount a solo exhibition in early 2018 at Tyburn Gallery in London. Recent group exhibitions include Ori meta, odun meta, ibikan’, shown at the ISCP, New York, USA (2017) and at the Centre for Contemporary Art Lagos, Nigeria (2016); Standing Out  (Temple Muse, Lagos, Nigeria: 2016); TimeLine  (Bag Factory Studios, Johannesburg, South Africa: 2015); Society of Nigerian Artists’ 50th Anniversary Exhibition at Omenka Gallery (Lagos, Nigeria: 2014); l’Art au service de la réconciliation  at Centre Soleil d’Afrique  (Bamako, Mali: 2014); Marker 2013, a special project at Art Dubai Fair (Dubai, UAE: 2013); Nigeria Now: Emerging trends of Contemporary Art in Nigeria, a special project at Art Africa Miami Arts Fair (Miami, FL, USA: 2012); Water  and Purity  at Wheatbaker Hotel Ikoyi (Lagos, Nigeria: 2012); Colours and Creativity  at National Museum Onikan (Lagos, Nigeria: 2012); and An Anonymous Tale  at Yokohama Creative City Center (Yokohama, Japan: 2011).