Daniel Obasi is a Nigerian-born art director, stylist and photographer who lives and works and Lagos. His first exposure to the arts came in 2012 while he was an intern in graphics design for a security firm.
Obasi found himself becoming interested in the fashion industry while attending university to study language. He also noticed how the culture around him viewed gender roles and masculinity.
The Illegal Project, a video and editorial project by Obasi about gender non-conforming expressions in an African context, was released in 2017. His emerging career as a Nigerian artist who challenges cultural norms regarding sexuality, masculinity, and gender roles was launched by the project.
The most accurate descriptions of Daniel Obasi's aesthetics are whimsical, gentle, ethereal, and Afrocentric. An Alien in Town, his 2018 Afrofuturistic film, pays homage to classic African cinema and promotes the idea that Africans should own own stories, particularly when it comes to outside influences.
His fourth and most recent film, Udara, explores the relationship between Christianity and traditional beliefs while using fanciful elements of storytelling to ground the Igbo culture.
Daniel Obasi has established himself as one of Lagos' top up-and-coming artists by styling for Beyonce's Black is King and placing Burna Boy on the cover of the April/May 2022 issue of Rolling Stone magazine. Obasi's intensely personal activist images, which tackle questions of identity, sexuality, masculinity, self-expression, and institutional power structures, are brimming with the hope and potential that define Afrofuturism.
“People write about wonderfully realistic experiences about Nigeria but as an African person I didn’t see a lot of the societal issues they touch upon reflecting in mainstream media. Artists show the problems that they are dealing with and how they try to rise above it,” Obasi says.
“We are very interested in having our voices heard but there aren’t a lot of people who are willing to take the risk. When you look around, there aren’t many platforms locally. It reinforces the need to create one. You realize there are a lot of people who see the world the way you do. I wanted to show images from a very specific, pure point of view and it felt like I was in control over that because I have a very unique way of doing things.”
Daniel Obasi’s work is now displayed online at Homecoming Gallery.
According to Daniel, "photography should evoke curiosity in you and make you want to know more, ask questions, be fascinated and want to do action, or just make you feel calm like the remembrance of an emotion."
We look forward to more inspiring groundbreaking works from Daniel!
