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The First Lagos Man

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2026 · painting

In the collection of Segun Omole.

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The First Lagos Man is one of the most important paintings I’ve made this year, and in many ways, one of the most personal.

A man dressed in red agbada sits beneath a sky filled with the people, memories, and celebrations of Lagos. He covers much of his face, but his eyes remain fixed on us. Above him is an entire city, its beauty, its weight, its contradictions.

I’ve spent years building a world around Lagos, trying to capture not just what the city looks like, but what it means to be made by it.

The making

  1. 01The gesture

    The pose comes first, in a handful of loose lines: a body leaning back on the ground, an arm raised across the face, and a horizon. Everything after is built on it.

    A loose pencil sketch of a figure leaning back on the ground, one arm raised, a horizon line behind.

  2. 02The face

    Then the face, drawn on its own over a brown ground. The arm hides everything below the eyes, so the eyes have to carry the picture.

    A dense line drawing of the head on a brown ground, the eyes looking out over a raised arm.

  3. 03The colour

    A loose study sets the palette in broad strokes: red cloth, brown skin, blue sky, and dark earth. The finished painting keeps all four.

    A loose colour study: the man in red under a blue sky, the brushwork open and unfinished.

  4. 04The sky

    In the study the sky is empty. In the painting it fills with people, made of the same strokes as the cloud: two figures cheek to cheek, a crowd in geles, and women with their arms thrown up.

    The upper half of the painting: figures in white and blue painted into the clouds.

  5. 05The last pass

    Then the hair is painted again, fuller, and the frame is drawn in closer around him.

    Detail of the head before the last pass, the hair cut close.
    Before the last pass
    Detail of the head as finished, the hair fuller against the sky.
    As finished

Up close

Close detail of two clasped fists and a gold bangle against a pale sky.

The fists

Locked at the end of the raised arm, in front of the brightest light in the painting.

Close detail of two figures embracing in the clouds, one in white, one in blue.

The two

Two figures cheek to cheek, painted into the cloud in white and blue.

Close detail of a gold pendant drawn over red cloth.

The gold

At the chest, the wrist, and the ear, laid over red.

Close detail of women in blue geles with raised arms, dissolving into blue brushwork.

The geles

Women with their arms thrown up, their geles turning into sky.

The First Lagos Man, 2026: a man in red agbada sits barefoot on dark ground, an arm across his face, beneath a sky full of people.
The First Lagos Man2026
Year
2026
Medium
Digital painting, archival pigment on canvas
Edition
Unique work, 1/1
Collection
Segun Omole
The First Lagos Man (2026) · Anthony Azekwoh, page loaded