These days, all the skies do is rain, but today’s a sunny day, and the 26-year-old art curator, Jojolola Dopamu, is busier than usual. He just came off the +234 Art Fair by EcoBank wave, he is happy about it. “It is all just work, you know, it is all a business,” he says as he talks about the Art Fair. This is his second year curating the Digital Art section at the fair, and this year’s was quite lucrative. He has been on the path to legitimise Digital Art, and his only request is that you don’t box it with AI art.
MEET JOJO:
In between photo shoots and being in the inventory at the Soto Gallery. Dopamu joins the Google Meet on time. He establishes he is a businessman, but he expresses that art is more. “There’s a toxicity that comes with focusing on how art is received. When all you think about is the business of art,” Dopamu says. At Digital Art Pavilion, he, along with the Almanak team, interviewed Anthony Azkewoh, a renowned artist. “Azekewoh said his best work is when he is not trying to appease patrons.”
ANTHONY AZEKWOH X SEVERE NATURE: The Lost Ones (Source: Almanak)
Dopamu dedicates most of his time to art, a trait that he began to exhibit as a kid. “My introduction to art is categorised by two phases. The first, as a kid, artists were the coolest people to me because they had an allure. I knew that was what I wanted, but I ended up leaning toward the Sciences.”
The middle class community in Nigeria is as fragile as iron in its crystalline metal state, cast iron; it is very brittle and would likely shatter under pressure. Born into this careful condition, kids unconsciously follow the path of a caretaker, someone who aims to continue the family wealth and fears risks. After all, everyone knows that dynasties are often destroyed in three generations: the moneymaker, the caretaker, and the undertaker.
Dopamu had plans to follow the curated path, get a good job in a trusted industry, preferably tech. Hence why, he obtained a degree in Mass Communication from Babcock University. Mass Communication is one of the most popular courses in Nigeria, as it ranks high on the sure to find employment list. But the greatest lessons we learn are the ones we don’t remember learning and for Dopamu, these lessons began at Babcock but not in the classrooms.
“I had friends who were into art at University. Shortly after I graduated in 2021, they took me to an event at EbonyLife. The event piqued my interest, altered my brain chemistry, and suddenly, I was chasing an art career.”
Four years later, he has not looked back, and if you asked, he’d tell you about how comfortable Soto Gallery is, because, no big deal, he works there.
What’s it like constantly working with artists? A question that haunts my puzzler, the media often exaggerates the persona of an artist, giving them a boatload of eccentricities. With his dark skin and mohawk-style dreads, you could argue Dopamu fits the persona, but none of that comes to his mind. The first response he thinks of goes, “Working with artists means always having innovation.”
Lately, platforms like X have been buzzing about a recent art exhibit, In The Eyes Of My Lover by Cynthia Ugwudike. The exhibition featured rugs in place of paintings, each rug told a story, and while most onlookers marvelled at Ugwudike’s ability to redefine her skill as a rug designer into a storytelling medium, Dopamu got to work.
In The Eyes Of My Lover by Cynthia Ugwudike.
“‘In The Eyes Of My Lover’ was beautiful. Her rugs are amazing and added a homely yet fun vibe. I wanted to take every piece home, but I reminded myself that I’m here for something else.”
By something else, Dopamu means Almanak.
MEET ALMANAK:
Dopamu self-describes Almanak as the one that survived. “My child, the one that didn’t become stillborn. There are dreams, there is impact, there is need, and there are things that leave marks.” Almanak Media, as the name suggests, is a platform for documenting art, a huge problem that has plagued the Nigerian creative industry.
At the 2025 Homecoming Masterclass, founder of Lagos Jazz Series, Oti Bazunu, expressed, “There are hundreds of classic Nigerian songs that are not on Spotify or Apple Music, and we do not have anyone building a music archive for our classics.” It is hard to teach the younger generation what came before with no citations. Bazunu tells a story of an artwork that sits in his house, which is of the legendary singer Nina Simone. It is a photo of her at the Lagos Beach, Tarkwa Bay in 1962. Simone travelled to Nigeria in December 1961 for the Lagos Festival, sponsored by the American Society of African Culture (AMSAC). Most records of this are by the Western press, with the Smithsonian Music featuring a letter about her first impressions of Lagos written by Simone to her husband, Andy Stroud.
Dopamu shares the exact sentiment, he tells the story of his first art exhibit. His tale is vague and lacking detail, but that’s the point, he had to opportunity to revisit the exhibit or see it in writing. There’s no article on it, no annals. “I have been in the art space since 2021, and I have noticed that events just come and go.”
Almanak’s goal is to document art in detail. In the same way, the Smithsonian Music collects data and pieces of music history. Dopamu wants exactly that, he wants the texts that motivated you, the song that kept you going, and the breakdown of creating the pieces. That is what he loves the most about art, the stories behind them.
MANUS X MACHINA: ART IN AN AGE OF TECHNOLOGY:
This is what troubles him about AI art. He is not against the incorporation of technology in the art space, as he is undoubtedly the biggest cheerleader for Digital Art.
A year ago, he pushed for the +234 Art Fair to add a Digital Art Pavilion to its exhibition. “It [Digital Art] is underappreciated. The artists put in hours and hours, and it is great that they are being platformed, too. Why should they be neglected because it is not traditional?”
This year’s was life-changing because he learned a lot about selling and pricing art and that was in part thanks to the co-founder of the Digital Art Pavilion, Ima Ekpo. “She taught me how to sell products and prints, it made a lot of difference. Profit is a defence because money is a defence.” But his relationship with AI art is different. If he loves Digital Art, then he loathes AI Art.
ADIRE by Shalom Ojo[Digital Art] (Soure: Almanak)
There’s a trend of using ChatGPT to make Studio Ghibli versions of themselves. This hits very close to home with him as he adores the Japanese Animation studio’s work. “I loved Studio Ghibli before I knew what it was. I watched Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle as a kid. I loved it, I don’t think the use of ChatGPT to Studio Ghibli-fy yourself is necessary. Especially since you know that Miyazaki [Hayao Miyazaki, one of the founders of Studio Ghibli] has expressed disdain for it. It is theft.”
ChatGPT evades lawsuits because copyright laws protect the art, not the artistic style. So the morality lies in the user. Are you going to enable a company that is profiting of someone’s life’s work?
For Dopamu, it is simple: AI Art is a mimicry of an actual artist’s style, and the artist is not being credited. It is a tale as old as time: people not wanting to pay for art. There’s a reason Micheangelo was known for being skilled at negotiations.
“I do think there’s a potential for AI to be accepted in the industry, but not as an artist. But rather, as an aide to artists. Art classes are expensive, you know, that’s the real cost, we should look into sponsoring or covering.”
He pitches a few ideas, which makes me realise that perhaps he didn’t go into tech for more than just reasons of passion. Sometimes it’s not our calling, and lately, Dopamu feels artists are ignoring theirs.
HIS POLITICS ON ART:
I wish I had an eidetic memory, you wish you had an eidetic memory. But neither of us does, so he will have to check his X account for his exact words because a tweet of his caused quite a stir.
It reads, “Nigeria is getting worse daily, and you guys don’t find it weird that the musicians of this era are not incorporating the reality of the present-day Nigerian struggle at all? [If] someone listens to a playlist of Nigerian music from the last 3 years, they might think we are enjoying.”
Here lies his second major problem with the modern art space, everyone’s losing their spark, their spite, their savour. Well, maybe they haven’t lost it, but one can not certainly decipher this by their art. “Art is political and socially conscious. But I don’t think it chronicles the times anymore, especially music.”
There’s a slow realisation that kids in the future won’t know about national grid collapses, in the way that we know Beast of No Nation by Fela Kuti. Akin to a depoliticisation of entertainment, with a handful of ideas on what policies your favourite artiste stands for.
When it comes to music, Dopamu is a sucker for the oldies, a Beatlemaniac. “The Beatles embodied the spirit of the 60s. They refused to perform at segregated shows, and only made their crossover to the states after JFK’s death.”
JFK proposed the bill that culminated in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, outlawing segregation in business and public places. The bill was passed half a year after his assassination.
He recounts other examples, none of a person below 50 or alive. “Bob Marley & The Wailers, Redemption Song.”
It is the same with art, he is all about narrative. Almanak, Digital Art, and Soto Gallery; these all fuel the same fire that inspires Dopamu. “We can’t talk about art without talking about its artist, and I don’t want to talk about a machine. So tell me your story.”