Raji Mohammed Babatunda Collection

Born on July 29th, 1986, Raji Mohammed Babatunde is a Lagos-based Nigerian visual artist. He graduated in Fine and Applied Art from Adeniran Ogunsanya College of Education in Ijanikin and he holds a bachelor’s in fine art and Education from the University of Nigeria in Nsukka. Raji is an impressionist who expresses himself in different drawing and painting mediums.

He started exploring his interest in art while in primary school by drawing comics and cars in all his notebooks. Today, his art portrays human relationships, memories of events, and facial expressions suggesting innocence, beauty, expectations, calm, directions, etc., with the aim of making viewers of his works connect to a particular moment in their lives, mostly pleasurable and unforgettable times.

Raji has been painting for over 10 years. His work is suggestive of his own childhood and his subjects, mostly children, take him back to this period in his life. Growing up in Africa he has seen the exploitation of women and young girls. His paintings capture their innocence and their beauty that he feels need to be protected at all cost. Raji has a very calm and reflective demeanor and connects to his subjects and work very deeply. As an artist, his use of light and dark creates depth and mood in imagery. Chiaroscuro, dramatism and his outstanding mastery of illumination produces different gradients and hues in his subjects. It bestows within the painting 3-dimensionality making the subjects look deeper and more real.