BOP PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE WEEK: ADEOLU OSIBODU

Self-taught photographer and artist Adeolu Osibodu places the human at the centre of his oeuvre, creating spectacular, surrealist images that synthesize dreams and reality. Drawing from life, Osibodu showcases the multiplicity of the self throughout time and his imagined realities. His mesmerizing filmic works are teeming with movement and narrative, each frame holding you still as you study its entirety, hoping it might spring into cinematic motion.

Osibodu was born in 1997 in Lagos, Nigeria, and began taking photographs at the age of 18. He found the medium to be expressive and liberating – far more elastic than language. Despite learning construction at the University of Lagos, Osibodu continued on his photographic pilgrimage, finding “nothing uninspirational”.

Osibodu, observer of all, takes his musings from daily life and recreates them with photo art; however, this process is not as meticulous as the beauty of each image would lead you to believe. In ARTCO, Osibodu explains “I never question my thoughts. I just document them with my camera and then If I’m lucky, I get to understand later in future”. Perhaps the fact that Osibodu removes this filter allows for the construction of such expansive and visually rich worlds.

The work of Nigerian, self-taught photographer Adeolu Osibodu creates surrealist images that synthesise dreams and reality in a spectacular, spiritual inquisition into the inner self. His work has been shown in France, Germany and the United Arab Emirates, and Osibodu has received the esteemed Eyeem Portraitist award in Berlin for his series Losing Amos.