If you love art and you get to visit Lagos in Nigeria, you might be lucky to meet Peter Alex. You’ll probably find him sketching some of his exclusive masterpieces−could be a portraiture of Nigeria’s president Muhammadu Buhari or one of the African founding fathers like Nelson Mandela or other forms spiraling from his untamed muses.
That’s because sketching different kinds of art has been his hobby since he was 3 years old. At that young age he had already started drawing cartoons and comics on the floor, and when he grew up, he opted to do fine arts in college. Today at 26 years, he continues to perfect his artistic skills on sketch boards and canvas, specializing in pyrography.
Pyrography is a technique that decorates wood or other materials using burn marks and razor-blade to carve out on sketch boards, giving the images various textures, colors and optical illusions. Sometimes he also uses sand paper to fill up different shades and give his work a smooth finish. They are then sprayed with fixative to stop the colors from running.
So far, he has held two productive exhibitions, selling his art pieces at a costs ranging between 170 to 800 USD within Lagos. The positive feedback encouraged him to improve on his artistic imaginations every time he sets to create new art.
Some Nigerian art collectors who have seen Peter’s pieces posted on social media currently own some of them in their collections including a majority’s all-time favorite dabbed, “Twist of Fate”.
Life is unpredictable sometimes. A journey could take a twist of fate and it could be everything you have hoped for, or not. That brings with it a nostalgic resonance to many because it relates to real life journeys. And that is what “. According to Peter, is the meaning embedded in “Twist of fate” as well as most of his arts which reference the African realities. For instance, if you pay attention to most of his creations, you will realize that in his arts are issues such as slavery, corruption, racism, self-conflict…and how they are being perceived by different people of different backgrounds and upbringing.
Surprisingly, before pursuing his undying passion for art, Peter first trained to be an accountant, only to grasp his destined path. He hopes that this path will aid his plans to start an arts school and gallery in order to promote the art of pyrography.
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