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By Osa Mbonu-Amadi

In a unique art exhibition of car and concept designs titled “Autovista: African Vehicle Visions” which started yesterday, March 27, and runs till April 10, 2022, at The Art Pantheon, 12D, Bosun Adekoya Street, Oniru, Lagos, Designer and Architect, Adedapo Paul Akintunde, offers drawings and designs to chart a broader vision for the automotive and creative industries in Nigeria.

According to Nana Sonoiki, Director at The Art Pantheon, “Autovista is a truly unique exhibition in Nigeria’s history, creating a space to engage with art as a catalyst for technological advancement and national progress.”

Akintunde is the Managing Director of Ivixi Design Movement Ltd. He studied Architecture at the University of Lagos (UNILAG), graduating with distinction in his final year design studio presentation. He studied Vehicle Design at the Royal College of Arts, London, graduating in 1994. After studying car design and working in the UK for some time, he returned to Nigeria and to architecture, rising to become the Group Creative Design Director of Design Union Consulting and a director of several other architectural establishments.

“After a year at Lacostech studying fine art,” says Akntunde in his Artists Statement, “I decided the course didn’t quite capture my imagining of future cars and environments, and no one took my car design claims seriously, so I took the next best thing: Architecture at UNILAG. Here, I was introduced to the basics of design.”

Akintunde later left for Europe. “After the RCA and working as a designer in Europe, I came back to Nigeria to sensitise consciousness with the possibilities for our own unique design voice, like Adire, agbada, music and dance, drama, Suya and all the other things we do better than anyone else when we do it our way.”

The artist hopes that this exhibition, being the first of its kind in Nigeria in its portrayal of a future leaning towards lifestyle objects and their characters, “will engender discussions and debate about our further reaching into this subject matter as a wider topic, away from self-hate, divisive conflicts, and the embezzlement of public funds to purchase of negative overseas products that have no future benefit for the intellectual development of our kids.”

Akintunde’s versatility across art and design oozes in his works that traverse the medium of painting on canvas and paper works of watercolour. Among such pieces of works on display are Circa (acrylic on canvas, 2021, 51x20cm); Trika 2, (ink and watercolour on paper, 2020, 28 x 41 cm); Regional Character (acrylic on canvas, 2021, 41 x 61 cm); Green Revolution (acrylic on canvas, 2019, 51 x 120cm); and Colourway On the Highway (acrylic on canvas, 2021, 41 x 61 cm).

“My designs look like things already in motion,” Akintunde further says, adding that he is making cars for here, cars that work for Africa

Vanguard News Nigeria