The story of the resilience of an average Nigerian entrepreneur or creative finds expression in the collection of visual artworks at the forthcoming exhibition at Launchpad, Fate Foundation, Ilupeju Lagos. It is also giving voice to the struggles, toils, pains, losses, failures and disappointments experienced by Nigerians at different spheres of human endeavours. The solo exhibition featuring paintings, drawings and mixed media tagged GRIT, by Tunde Aleilo couldn’t have come at a better time than now when Nigeria’s economy is at its lowest ebb with the attendant high inflation rate. It will open on June 22 till 28.
Aleilo who held his 50th birthday exhibition few years ago, recalled that the story of GRIT is a story of how not to give up, how falling many times and rising up again has brought him to where he is today. He noted that Fate Foundation’s involvement in the exhibition remains strategic as an entrepreneurial school where people are thoughts how to put structure in their business.
“So, all the pieces on display are addressing the story of the resilience of an average Nigerian entrepreneur, using Fate Foundation as a case study. I also wanted to use this opportunity to celebrate what Fate Foundation is doing and their social impact in the society. Without Fate Foundation, I think someone like me wouldn’t be here today. I would have still remained in business, lost in the crowd and not understanding what I am doing.
“Fate Foundation was the place where I got my life right as an entrepreneur. Prior to 2021, I was just running business like I am on an autopilot. I didn’t even understand whether there was anything called business structure.
It was when I came here that I learned a lot of things about business structure. I learned about negotiation. I learned that when you want to do business, there must be some form of integrity in what you’re doing,” he said.
Interestingly, the artist is also dedicating no fewer than 80 percent of the works in the show to the promotion of women while drawing attention to issues of inequality between the genders in line with the SDGs. There is a particular piece that says behind every successful woman, there is a man. It is talking about a woman who has the support of her husband, and with the support of her husband, she is able to weather the storms.
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Most of the works are in series particularly pencil drawing such as Unspoken series, Horse series, Tenacity series which celebrate bonds between women and their pet dogs, as well as horse-ridding women. But, with water colour, Aleilo depicts joyful moment of a shared joy in Her voice, Her victory, Soft power of presence, Practice through pain, and others.
We’ve seen the role that the creative economy has played in positioning Nigeria. When people talk about the good things about Nigeria, we talk about fashion, we talk about music, we talk about entertainment, we talk about film, movie, and that, those are the things that are showing that Nigeria can be competitive in the world.
We are very happy and proud to support this project. And we also hope that the conversations that happen during that week, not just the exhibition of this artwork, that also serves as, you know, inspiring and learning opportunities for artists and all those in the creative space.
FATE Foundation is Nigeria’s foremost enterprise development organisation that seeks to harness the strong entrepreneurial culture of Nigerians by providing aspiring entrepreneurs with business incubation, growth, and accelerator support required to fully explore their innovative potential, to start, grow and scale their businesses with the mission to foster wealth creation by promoting businesses and entrepreneurial development among Nigerians.