Samuel’s style cuts across contemporary portraiture and anthropomorphism. He uses his art to create self-awareness and also to embed the human consciousness and thoughts into non-human life forms, this is because animals often provided a moral mirror for reflecting the best and the worst of the human race.
In examining the dynamism and creativity of diverse animal species and investigating their behavioral similarities with humans, If any. Samuel employs anthropomorphism (personification) like in Yoruba folklore, as a language of discourse on modern day trends and issues. Samuel’s subjects’ eyes appear unproportionate. This is a conceptual gesture deployed by the artist to accentuate the nomenclature of artistic perception, in equation to life’s sensory perception: when one pays attention to a particular perspective view, every rest phenomenon recedes in constant flux. In essence, such a gesture can be attributed to an act where an eye becomes dispensable (dimmed) to its pair to assume a central role in perception. It is in this transposable, relative, mutant guise and gesture, however, that Samuel employs conceptualization to his subjects, through the eyes. An eye becomes bulgy (larger) than its pair, so to say.
An emphasis on the eyes of the subjects has become the most pertinent and integral aspect of an ongoing figurative studies for the painter, Samuel Semako Vittu. It is the body’s (most essential) vessel; the focal passage. He is said to be demonstrating that so as to express the significance of the body.
SAMUEL SEMAKO VITTU
Lagos, Nigeria 1991
EDUCATION
2014- 2017
University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Enugu State
Second Class Honors, Upper Division, Fine and Applied Arts Education, (Painting Major)
2010- 2013
NCE – Adeniran Ogunsanya College of Education, Otto Ijanikin
Fine and Applied Arts Education, (painting major)
EXHIBITIONS
2023
Contemporary Redefined Africa Today, Olyms Collection/Sothebys Tel -Aviv,Israel
2023
Tight Knit, Harsh Collective Gallery(Virtual) New York,USA
2021
A Room With All Our Things. Art Pantheon Gallery Lagos, Nigeria
2021
On Display, Wielding power. Gallery at the Landmark Lagos, Nigeria
2021
Refrigerator poetry, Online exhibition
2019
Dreams, Vivid Exclusive art Gallery Lagos, Nigeria
2013
Life in my city, Lagos Zone, National Museum Onikan Lagos, Nigeria
2013
Annual students Exhibition, Adeniran Ogunsanya College of Education Lagos, Nigeria
2012
Annual students Exhibition, Adeniran Ogunsanya College of Education Lagos, Nigeria
RESIDENCIES
2022-2023
The Noldor Residency, Visiting Fellow – Visiting Fellow Accra, Ghana
PRESS
2021
A room with all our things. Vanguard
2021
A room full of beautiful art. https:tribuneonlineng.com/a-room-full-of-beautiful-art/
2021
Black to black, Zine issue #2.
2018
The spark, Paintings. Samuel
2016
Vittu Samuel Semako, Art635 virtual Museum
Recently on A-ARTS: www.africanartswithtaj.com
COLLECTIONS
The Institute Museum of Ghana Accra, Ghana
Sir David Adjaye Collection New York | London | Accra
Private Collection Nigeria
Private Collection Nigeria
Oym Collection Belgium
COLLECTIONS
The Travis London collection USA
Ibelin collection USA