By Osa Mbonu-Amadi  

Last Saturday, August 27, 2022, Mrs. Modupe Ogunlesi sat for five great visual artists – Olu Ajayi, Osagie Osazuwa, Duke Asidere, Lekan Onabanjo and Wallace Ejoh – for her portrait to be captured through a life drawing. The event, described as a pre-event event and titled ‘Life Drawing @ Eve of 70’ held at Mrs. Modupe Ogunlesi’s Adam&Eve, 8 Isaac John Street, GRA, Ikeja, Lagos.

Mrs. Ogunlesi’s path with art began as a deliberate passion that generated The Content Art Gallery within the Adam&Eve complex. In her well-established passion of blazing trails, Mrs. Ogunlesi, in 2017, had Adam&Eve made a debut art exhibition titled The Content. The maiden exhibition, which some observers argued “was the first of its kind within the Ikeja axis in the 21st century Nigerian art appreciation space,” had works of master printmaker, Dr Bruce Onobrakpeya, Kolade Oshinowo, Raqib Bashorun, Lekan Onabanjo, Tola Wewe, Duke Asidere, Alex Nwokolo, Zinno Orara and Fidelis Odogwu on display.

Between 2017 and currently, Mrs. Ogunlesi’s deliberate footprints on the art appreciation landscape has grown with at least one exhibition, yearly, adding to Nigerian art economy. The Adam&Eve brand is over 23 years old.

Briefly telling the story of her journey with art, beauty and Adam&Eve, Mrs. Ogunlesi said: “How did I get here? My customers had to be lovers of gifts. For instance, you can get a plate anywhere, but the plates here are a bit special because of the way they are made and for their beauty. So, whatever is here must be beautiful and functional, that is to perform the work it is meant to perform in a better way than the average plate.

“So that is the gathering of what is in Adam&Eve, and that is Adam&Eve. I thought at this stage, you have these lovely things in your house, and then on your wall, there is not one art – nothing that adds value, nothing that is special. So, I said it is time for them to start looking at art in its purer form. That was the beginning. I told the artists that they are coming to meet a different category of customers and clients. These are not going to be your usual collectors. The people who buy from the Content Gallery are not your collectors; they are just lovers of beauty.

“In Adam & Eve, cutlery is not just to eat, it is also to tantalize your mind even before you open your mind to eat, the plates are no longer just plates, they are meant to enhance the food you are going to put in your tummy; beds are not beds, otherwise you could sleep on the floor. This is like bringing your 7-star hotel to your home.

“When you do all these things and then you look at your wall, it must also be something that inspires you. When you wake up in the morning and open your eyes and the first thing you see is a Lekan Onabanjo (artwork), it makes you glad to be awake. What your eyes see at any time is very important. There is a saying that “Beauty will save the world.” With all the nastiness in the whole world now, if you are surrounded by beauty there will be no reason why you want to hurry out of this world.

“That is why we now have the artists giving us beauty on the walls, cups to make you feel more alive, etc., and that complements what Adam&Eve does. So that is why the Content (Art Gallery) is housed by Adam&Eve.”

One of the 5 artists, Olu Ajayi, who made a life drawing of Mrs. Modupe Ogunlesi also explained the reason for behind the life drawing: “It is a pre-event event,” Ajayi said. “To be 70 is not a joke. And we in the art community, the seasoned artists, have deemed it fit having been invited to honor her with this exercise. Now the whole idea of this exercise is not just done for the sake of entertainment. It is to institute her into the body of art. Many people have forgotten that Monalisa was done as a portrait, but it has been elevated as an artform.

“So, these artists are here primarily to paint a portrait. They are here to do a work of art, using her as a source of inspiration in which some of the element of her personality will be in that drawing. Some (of the resulting works) might look like her exactly, some might not, but they are different styles and the artists are at liberty to execute this work in their own styles.

“Why is she meriting this exercise? You know that her area of interest is Fine Art. She has a gallery within her business composition, and she has worked with so many artists. She is also a collector. She might not be the noisy type. She has been working silently and has made a lot of impact on the artists. Some of the great artists are in her collection – the Onobrapeya, etc., and most importantly, she has a very good rapport with the artists. So, we felt that in her time of celebration we won’t be left out. That is why we are doing this pre-event event in her honor.

What will happen to the artworks produced from this life drawing of Modupe Ogunlesi? “Artworks don’t vanish,” Ajayi said. “They are always going to be somewhere. So, for now, those works will be used as a way of giving back, that is, look for a charity that she has sympathy for… the works will be kind of politely auctioned. It is not going to be a commercial thing.”