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Nigerian artist Teda's fresh, surreal digital art

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ABIMBOLA Teda describes his style as both African and modernPHOTOs: supplied
ABIMBOLA Teda describes his style as both African and modernPHOTOs: supplied

Lagos-based artist Toby Emmanuel F – or Teda – caught our eye when his abstract Afro-minimalist work was featured online at African Digital Art. Teda’s eye-catching graphic art, which is not dissimilar to that of Pablo Picasso, has been shown in numerous exhibitions around Nigeria and is currently sold on UK website Ayoka.


Abimbola

Teda works as a creative manager for a technology company and sees this as part of his job as a full-time artist. #Trending caught up with him via email.

I read that you did a project with CNN Africa. Tell us a bit about that.
Lol, it was cool to have had my work shown on an amazing platform such as CNN Africa. It was originally an art exhibition that female polo player Neku Atawodi had put together. Fortunately, my pieces were among those that made it to the event. I also made some Snapchat geofilters around Lagos. The Ikeja, Ikoyi, Lekki, Ajah and Magodo geofilters were made by me.



We love the surreal, abstract nature of your work; it’s something I haven’t often seen in African contemporary art. What draws you to this style?
I’m glad you love my style. I love abstract – it doesn’t limit one’s imagination; one can think away and create away. My style is totally unique, yes, I know. However, I’m still kind of surprised by how people kind of immediately connect with my works and then often have different interpretations of the work. I guess it speaks differently to different people.

I can say my type of art is hard to come by. I love being different, I love standing out and I love simplicity – all of which reflects in what I do. The colours, the lines, shapes, angles – they all hold a strong part in my creations.

My style is African and modern. I love being African, I love my African heritage, culture and background. Recently, my work has focused more on promoting the natural African feminine body type. Big is beautiful and size doesn’t connote good health, which is something that a lot of body shamers are ignorant of.

We live in a world where everybody seems to have a cinematic idea of what beauty should and should not look like, which leads to body shaming and other issues. I mean, if you think about it, the amount of energy, stress and emotion people put into looking like what a magazine cover depicts as beautiful is just alarming. And even more so is that some people don’t even spend half the time examining what really matters, such as their actual inner body health, mental health, psychological well-being, real human-to-human friendships and the like. Now, tell me how people and relationships would not turn out dysfunctional if we are all chasing the cinematic experience?

I see you sell phone cases too – is it important for you to create art that’s also commercially marketable?
Yes, I do. Currently, they are available on ayokadeco.com in the UK. I wouldn’t say I make commercial art – my aim when making a piece is not to make it commercial. I just express how I feel and what I like and how my emotion leads me – I just make them. It usually turns out that people just love them. But in the long run, I’m also making my work available on several platforms to ensure that it’s accessible to my fans and different audiences. I believe art shouldn’t be made available only to the rich. There are ways of producing it so that everyone benefits from the creative output – creating phone cases is one of them.

Which artists currently inspire you?
Hmm, interesting. I'm a huge fan of Jean M Basquiat - crazy guy, I mostly like how he puts out his work, quite raw, I also love how he dressed. I love Henri Matisse, how he used colours and how he painted naked women - you could tell he loved his subjects. I love how simple and less complex his works were. Currently I'm in love with Peju Alatise, her works blow my mind, I can literately be a subject for her creation - she's a queen creator.

I’ll like to say a big thank you to all my fans and followers. 

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