“The true artist helps the world by primarily revealing mystic truth, exposing us to visual form that inspires our intuitive faculties, providing us with an encounter with the new".
In conformity with this statement, Raqib Abolore Bashorun, Head of Department, Graphic Design, School of Art, Design & Printing, Yaba College of Technology, Yaba, Lagos, is currently showcasing 20 masterly mixed media works inspired by challenges faced by the people of his time.

The solo exhibition tagged Charged Currents, opened recently at Terra Kulture, Victoria Island, Lagos, as a documentation of the artist’s view of his society.

A graduate of graphic design from the School of Art, Design and Printing, Yaba College of Technology, Lagos, as well as art education and sculpture from the University West of Mississippi, University of Missouri, Columbia Missouri, USA, Bashorun is an artist who does not subscribe to being trapped in a particular specialization.

He believes that “Technique is process while material is a medium of expression.” As inevitable as both are to the process of creation, he employs both technique and material to guide his audience through his vast conception and visualisation about issues.

His words: “I do not allow them to define me; rather, I approach my work on a strong conceptual ground with sound technical knowledge and fervent creative spirit.”
As an escapist artist who would have been no more than a practitioner of a style if he accepts the sentence of being committed to a specialization, what he creates is characterized by his willingness to create irrespective of the source of the call.

In these pieces, the artist, who is currently teaching Three-Dimensional Design in his department is strengthened by his experience and he is able to invoke the same spirit in the work, which reflects the rhythm and the reality of this struggle.

He doesn’t see art as merely a piece of furniture. His work is not just about creating art; it is also about challenging my understanding of my materials and methods, invention and authorship through creation of forms and art elements, which are visually engaging.

Apart from serving as experimental work that exhibits technical prowess of Bashorun masterly practice with wood and metal such that pushes the functions of some wood machines beyond their everyday use, The exhibition is the record of the growth of Bashorun art practice in the recent times after his last two solos of 2005 and 2006.

Some of these works include; National Cake, My Heart Bleeds, Mother Of Pearl, Out Of Chaos, Precious Cargo, Wealth Of The Nation, Siamese, After The Storm, I Hope High Hope, I Dream Dear Dream, Forbidden Fruit, Ancestral Background etc.

Precious Cargo depicts a cargo in which kids, men and women are kidnapped and moved across the Atlantic with impunity. My Heart Bleeds is an experience of the artist of what happens around. He can’t help but to weep for the country.

The National Cake is made of barbed wire, concrete. It is not desterable for food as one cannot eat concrete or wire. This depicts the country’s national cake.

Ancestral Background signifies today’s youth that lack respect for elders. They are rough, untamed, uncultured and challenge elders to a fight. I Hope High Hope is a work that represents all the states of the federation. Everybody is expected to be catered for equally. But that is far from the case. The truth is that some benefit more than others.