There’s one thing quietly electrical about watching an artist faucet into the collective temper of a rustic. Or not less than, the temper of the chronically on-line.
Anthony Azekwoh, Lagos-based artist, author, and entrepreneur, has Nigerians glued to their screens together with his newest mission, The Marriage ceremony. By mixing humour, fiction, and placing artwork, Azekwoh has created a cultural occasion.
Nigerians should not solely wanting on the work; they’re actively debating, decoding, and even co-writing the story. In a rustic the place weddings are social theatre, Azekwoh has tapped into the drama to remind us that artwork could be simply as related to nationwide gist as any blockbuster album or movie launch.
Who’s Anthony Azekwoh?
In case you’ve been taking note of Nigeria’s artwork scene, Anthony Azekwoh is a reputation you already know. A up to date artist with a cult following, his work reimagines African folklore and mythology by digital and bodily mediums.
His journey has been outlined by change: educating himself to attract as a baby after first writing tales, dropping out of college to pursue his profession, and continuously shifting between writing, portray, and sculpting.
Expertise has been a central a part of his apply. Azekwoh believes it has given African artists a louder voice, serving to them inform tales that when carried stigma or had been simply ignored. His work replicates conventional methods whereas pushing them by digital canvases, usually leading to bodily, larger-than-life items.
With over 1,200 work created up to now 9 years, he’s no stranger to reinvention. “The Wedding” is simply the most recent.
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The Marriage ceremony started not with an actual fee, however with a fictional one. Azekwoh shared a tongue-in-cheek “artist’s word” describing how he had been employed to color wedding ceremony portraits in Lagos, just for chaos to interrupt free. Company walked into his studio bruised, shocked, or teary-eyed. The bridesmaid refused to wipe away her tears. One of the best man loomed like an enormous, full with a black eye. The maid of honour froze in disbelief.
It’s all there, rendered in Azekwoh’s signature brushstrokes. In his fictional account, the couple rejected the work for being “garish,” leaving him to say them as his personal.
That story, laced with humour and profanity, grew to become the proper narrative body for the gathering. He’s teasing Nigerians with fixing the puzzle, and truthfully? We’re taking the bait.
Learn our interview under:
What impressed you to start out “The Marriage ceremony”, and why did you select weddings because the central theme?
Marriage is a battlefield, and the marriage is the start of all of it. It’s this wonderful tapestry of various archetypes all beneath one roof. There are the individuals who don’t wish to be there, the people who find themselves drained, the individuals who secretly don’t such as you…it’s this stunning melting pot, and I needed to depict that.
How do you resolve which character or second in a marriage to color subsequent?
Oh man, I’m telling a narrative so there’s a construction after which there’s surprises. So I’m telling it with that in thoughts. It’s half deliberate, half serendipity.
The sequence has the web in a chokehold. Did you anticipate this sort of response, particularly from Nigerians?
To be trending on the identical pages as Odumodu and BBN has been loopy. I don’t suppose I’ve ever seen something like this. I’m honoured, truthfully.
What number of works can we anticipate, and is that this resulting in one thing greater, like an exhibition?
I don’t know, truthfully, issues are loopy, and life is filled with surprises.
The primary portray sparked quite a few tales on-line. How does viewers interpretation have an effect on your subsequent items?
It’s a type of issues that I’m truthfully making an attempt to keep away from. I’ve been actually following my very own head and coronary heart on this one.
“Amala has completed ma.”
“As how?”
“Sorry ma, however we nonetheless have semo—”
“God punish you,” Arike bitterly hissed, and the timid catering employees fled. She turned again to the bride, starvation for each meals and lover bringing her to tears. “No babe. No amala. God abeg…”#BridesmaidbyAA https://t.co/Skeic1r10F— Prophetess of The GOA and Arepo✨🦋 (@Xhose_Jude) September 8, 2025
Of all of the fan-made tales and memes, Azekwoh tells me that the story about Amala on the wedding ceremony was most likely probably the most amusing one. “I’ve seen so many webs and theories, and truthfully, it’s been so enjoyable and attention-grabbing studying all of them.”
How do you steadiness staying true to your imaginative and prescient whereas the web runs wild with narratives?
I’m sticking with the unique plan and feeling, and I want to inform these tales. I believe that’s what’s driving me. A should be right here and entertain, and likewise to broaden everybody’s ideas and emotions on what this could possibly be. So, there’s no steadiness actually, it’s simply me, telling the perfect story I can, with my fingers crossed that you just guys don’t burn me on the stake if you see the {REDACTED}
The responses to The Marriage ceremony have been as inventive because the work themselves. On Twitter and his web site, writers and followers have spun tales for every character, including layers of fiction that blur the road between actuality and artwork.
“I even wrote a narrative for The Bridesmaid, now I’m ready for the entire assortment so I can full it,” one user posted. Others confessed heartbreak after they realised their imagined tales weren’t canon, proof of how deeply audiences have invested in Azekwoh’s world.
With The Marriage ceremony, Anthony Azekwoh has taken one among Nigeria’s most beloved traditions and reframed it as artwork, not simply to be seen, however to be argued over, laughed about, and shared on-line.
In doing so, he’s proven that modern Nigerian artwork could be as a lot part of on a regular basis gist as music or actuality TV.
