KELANI FATAI

Kelani Fatai is a Nigerian artist. He was born and raised in Mushin, a commercial area of Lagos. At the age of six, he discovered his passion for drawing. After apprenticing under two Lagos-based artists, Damilola Opedun and Muyiwa Williams, he gained admission to the prestigious Yaba College of Technology, Yaba, Lagos, to study art and design in 2014. He graduated from the higher education institution in 2019 with a Higher National Diploma in Painting.

The artist excels in a variety of artistic mediums, such as oil, acrylic, pastel, watercolor and charcoal. He is one of those black portrait artists who captures his models with a style imbued with grandeur. His works are meticulously detailed, celebrating the power and identity of the black community.
He began his career in 2016 by participating in several exhibitions in Lagos, then extended his reach internationally from 2021, notably at the Bommer Gallery in London and Athens Open Art in Greece. Its presence on the international scene has strengthened over time, with exhibitions such as "Feminity" (2022) at the Lorin Gallery in California, which also presented it the same year at Art Basel Paris (2002). He has also been exhibited during "Black Joy" (2022) and "Body Rhythms" (2022) at TAAG Gallery in Iowa, "Florescence" (2022) with Mitochondria Gallery in Houston, and "Women in Charge" (2023) at Christopher Person in Brussels. Additionally, the artist has been featured in several group exhibitions such as "No Prisoners, Only Trophies" (2023) and "Now you see me, Now you don't" (2023) at Eclectica Contemporary gallery, as well as " Birth of Flowers” (2023) at wallsandhalls Gallery in New York and “New Perspectives: A group showing of African Portraiture” (2024) at Allouche Gallery in Los Angeles.