Alimi Adewale: Layered Memory Between African Tradition and Contemporary Vision

Rooted in a tension between ancestral memory and contemporary sensibility, Alimi Adewale’s practice unfolds as a layered visual language that connects time, material, and identity. Born in Nigeria, the artist draws from a rich African symbolic heritage, reworking it through a research that moves beyond the boundary between tradition and the present. At the core of his work is a form of figuration that does not seek realism, but instead becomes a vehicle for constructing symbolic and transcendent imagery. Masks, figures, and signs are transformed into essentialized forms, where distortion and intense color amplify emotional and spiritual dimensions. Materiality plays a crucial role: Adewale incorporates found objects, textile fibers, and rugs such as kilim and dhurrie, whose woven structures become active elements within the composition. The pictorial surface expands into an almost sculptural dimension, where layering and texture narrate a story of cultural sedimentation. References to African tradition, prehistoric painting, and a free, gestural approach coexist in works that reflect on identity, migration, and belonging. The result is a deeply spiritual practice that uses form and matter to question the present and imagine new possibilities of connection.