The Nigerian-born artist Abiola Akintola -- referred to simply as “Abiola” -- began his formal study of art at a very young age. His early training enabled him to learn the anatomical parts of the figure quickly and thereby to grasp the importance of drawing a line that would activate the
appearance of the figure in space.
The youthful artist paid close attention to his instructors as he drew the proportions of the body with remarkable accurately, assimilating the head, shoulders, arms, torso, and legs as a total biomechanical structure. His teachers encouraged him to give any drawing of the human body an appearance of energy and dignity.
Although Abiola was persistently involved in drawing and oil painting throughout his years of schooling, he ultimately decided to take a college degree in sculpture. While he enjoyed painting on a flat surface, he was also driven to work on material forms in actual space. Thus, sculpture allowed him to weld cast and weld, to create complex cubist angles, and express the joy of movement as it related to the human likeness.
For most of his career, including his time in Chicago – where Abiola has lived for more than two decades -- he has worked both as a painter and sculptor. He uses a variety of materials,
including paint, metal, wood, clay, and discarded objects that he finds on the street. His interest in working with found objects, such as discarded soda cans from which he extracts shredded metal, has given him the label of “the Green Revolution Artist.”
