African Artist, Author, Curator. Storyteller. https://t.co/kMgdVBcDui
"In the beginning, there was nothing. Then man said, `Let there be stories,' and the gods were born." These are the words that began the first teaser I dropped for The Òrìṣà, a series of art and stories representing the Yorùbá pantheon. The fact that this drop of 3 sculptures grossed 6,372 mints and 19.09 Eth ($31,629.84) in this market is absolutely insane to me. Thank you once again to , the entire team and for making this happen. As a Nigerian, and an African, we are very used to our stories, our lore, our mythologies not taking the centre stage and growing up, these were the exact things I longed for. It's why I've written so many books and stories and essays on the topic-I really do care. Working on these sculptures, one thing I obsessively told anyone that would listen was the concept of a "cultural visual library" that one had of a lot of the figures at the centre of our myths and stories. For instance, if I ask you to imagine Thor, you can easily conjure up this muscular blonde figure in your head or maybe it's something completely different from another incarnation of the myth. But when I say imagine Ṣangó, or Amadioha, your mind draws a blank. A lot of the art we have of these figures has been lost or pillaged and we've lost a lot of our connection to these stories and to the parts of ourselves that once housed them. My goal as an artist, an author, and an African is always to showcase where I'm from and with these sculptures and this drop, I feel like we've come a step closer in making these images and visual information more widespread and understood. Thank you once again to everyone who took part, I appreciate you. I present to you The Òrìṣà Ṣangó, the god of lightning and thunder. Oyá, the goddess of storms and the Niger River. And Ògún, the god of war and iron. More to come.
