Wahab Saheed

Bill Brady Gallery presents Birthdays are Special, the first solo exhibition of paintings by Wahab Saheed in the United States.

Saheed began his artistic journey at a very young age in Lagos, Nigeria, gathering pieces of burnt wood from the fires people use to cook with in the streets. He would practice drawing on the sides of buildings and became recognized by his local community as the charcoal artist. Having lost his father at a young age, Saheed was raised by his grandmother, who fostered his talent and interest in becoming an artist and later encouraged him to pursue an education in the arts.

Most confident with a stick of charcoal in hand, Saheed has expanded his mediums with oils and acrylics. He soon found confidence as a portrait artist, documenting his family and friends, the muses in his life. In Days of Innocence I, II and III, Saheed depicts his closest school mates from Yaba College of Technology in the midst of a birthday celebration, splashing bold primary colors over backgrounds and decorative balloons, while his subjects are distinctively rendered in Saheed’s signature charcoal. The evident contrast in mediums gives further emphasis to the struggling realities of growing up in Nigeria. “Me and my two mates would wake up every day and go to school together, never knowing where our next meal would come from, or how we would even be able to afford living. This was our reality.”

Saheed likened working on the exhibition, Birthdays are Special, to a celebration. He channels an expressive state of mind to begin the process of making new works and these portraits recount the celebratory essence of life that Saheed cherishes. His works are reflections of his experiences and environment, including the people who occupy those spaces, and questions the normal sensibility of the human condition.

“This is what I do. I want to capture the expressions of my life and times in Lagos with these paintings.”

Wahab Saheed (Lago, Nigeria, 1998) studied at Yaba College of Technology in Lago and has shown at Nanzuka Underground, Tokyo, Japan. He lives and works in Lagos.