The View From Lagos: The queer Nigerian artists risking everything to amplify LGBTQ+ voices

The View From... is a new column on It’s Nice That written by a team of international correspondents in major creative cities around the world. Every two weeks we’ll report on the design scene in these cities, exploring the topics that are making an impact on the local creative community there. This week, Ugonna-Ora Owoh is reporting from Lagos.

For the artist Babatunde Tribe, art is their vehicle of exploration and communication, their weapon of subversion that unfetters them from social conservatism and offers them the liberty to think, to express and to create especially as a queer and non-binary person living in Nigeria. In 2021, Babatunde began art as a form of therapy and ever since they’ve become one of the artists in Nigeria freely opened to the charming expressiveness and documentation of LGBTQ+ Nigerian experiences and stories through paintings and digital illustrations. “Creating art centred around queer lives and experiences holds immense significance for me due to its power to amplify voices often marginalised or silenced. As a member of the queer community, I understand the importance of representation and the impact it can have on fostering understanding, empathy, and societal change,” says Babatunde.

But far from active queer representation through brushstroke and canvas, Babatunde’s art is a form of activism, a necessary SOS that analyses what it’s like to be queer in Nigeria in this era where everything is programmed to be against the community. It’s this frustration that motivates their vision; the awful ways queer people are treated but also the way queer individuals make space for themselves, and Babatunde has tried to find the perfect balance to create art pieces that capture both these pains, these joys and the overall reality of the community, so that the future can have a good record to reminisce over. “I envision my art becoming a historical record,” Babatunde says. “20 years from now, when a student or researcher delves into what it was like being queer in 2024, my art will serve as a vivid snapshot of those experiences. It’s my contribution to preserving our history and making it easily accessible for future generations.”

For Babatunde, navigating life as a queer person in a country like Nigeria isn’t easy. They continue to face physical and online biases due to their expression. However, this has fuelled their determination for advocacy and as much doesn’t limit their artistic strength, rather adds to it and contributes to their resilience and joy. “Absolutely documenting queer stories through art brings me immense joy. It’s a powerful way to amplify voices, share diverse experiences, and contribute to a more inclusive narrative. Art has the ability to evoke empathy, challenge perceptions, and foster understanding. Through this process, I find purpose in advocating for equality and highlighting the beauty of diversity within the queer community.”

In Nigeria, LGBTQ+ rights are estranged, putting queer and trans lives at risk of discrimination, bias and public harassment. This is a result of a law that rather criminalises queer expression. Known as the same sex marriage prohibition act (SSMPA) and passed in 2014; the law punishes same-sex union and practice with 14 years in imprisonment. The effect of this law has forced queer Nigerians into hiding for a decade and continues to be a weapon used by homophobic people to abuse, extort and kill queer people. Regardless, queer people continue to speak vocally about these discriminations, using whatever form to address their views and further creating spaces for themselves. Art is one of these means adopted.

“It feels like leaving a footprint that will never be washed away,” says Hazel Timi when I ask what it’s like to make queer art. “It gives me so much joy that someone out there would see my art and feel warm inside because they know they aren’t alone and they can live just any life they want.”

Hazel is boldly inspired by the human emotion, its perfect embodiment and its visible and invisible beauty. It’s why he has spent the last couple of years trying to capture the different aspects of the human drive; exploring different people and how they feel, what they feel, what drives and motivates them. But he’s mostly interested in the feminine and it doesn’t matter whether it’s the feminine expression of men or fine portraits on femme men or the bold spotlight on women, he expresses them with an amazing air of artistic aura.

Picture this: a portrait of two naked women licked up by a furious fire, their necks clutched together in pitiful motion, a smoke pipe to their mouth and a quiet weep of agony wrap them solidly: this is the art of Ohimor Yinkore titled A Love Forged by Fire and describes the agony of two lesbians burned to death for loving each other in a country like Nigeria. “I wanted to let myself imagine that at the time of their death, they sought comfort in each other's arms. A final act of resistance, to celebrate their love,” says Ohimor. “I had seen the post on Nairaland (a public forum for Nigerian news). The horrible picture showed their bodies burned to a crisp, I could not tell where one woman began and the other ended. I just needed to create the piece to shed a light on the struggles of people in the community, who must now live their lives in constant fear of being mocked, ostracised, beat up and killed by members of the general public, as well as torture and imprisonment by the State.”

A Love Forged by Fire commands varied forms of emotions: grief, fear and love; but it seems to be one of the most important works that shine a light on what queer persecution looks like in Nigeria. It guides us into the creative introspection of Ohimor, who recalled art came as a form of healing to her, or a solid means to distract her from the rough times she faced in 2017. But she slowly fell in love with it and ever since, she has been dedicated to highlighting the lives of Black women, what bothers them and how they navigate life. “I want my art to be a love letter to Black women. I want them to find solace in what I create. I hope just seeing art that looks like them and considers them makes them feel less alone,” she adds.

Ohimor is somewhat of a tinkering artist. While she relies on the digital forms of art, she also finds means to a fusion with traditional techniques, combining variant geometrical lines to form abstract figurations or a hybrid form of digital art that gives her paintings an acrylic or oil painting sensation. She’s also found means to tell queer stories through art in a very subtle way. “I often paint what I know, and I’m a bisexual Black woman. So although it may not always be obvious, my work enjoys celebrating queer love or queerness in general with subtle details like having two women in a Valentine’s Day piece, or dressing the women in my pieces in outfits I think are typically perceived as queer, even if the piece has nothing to do with speaking on queerness,” she explains.

Above all, Ohimor cherishes true freedom, and not just for herself and her artistic spirit; she wants the liberation of the LGBTQ+ community. “I think my biggest hope is freedom,” she says. “The freedom for queer people to be able to show up as their most authentic selves and live in peace. Which honestly, is the barest minimum but it is a reality a lot of us will never have.”

If you want to find out more about queer culture and creativity in Lagos and Nigeria more broadly, Ugonna-Ora has put together some recommendations to get you started.

• Exhibition to see: Future, past is a solo exhibition by Tejumola Adenuga open until 14 July at the Art Twenty One gallery, Lagos.

• Creative to follow: Aindrea Emelife, historian and curator behind the second-ever Nigerian Pavilion at the recent Venice Biennale.

• Check out: Osinachi, Nigeria’s first-ever NFT creator whose art captures queer identity and mystery.

• Listen to: The Art Report Africa podcast episode two, titled The Business of Gallery Ownership with Morenike Adeagbo.

• Read: God’s Children Are Little Broken Things, a compilation of short stories by Arinze Ifeakandu that explores what it means to be a queer Nigerian, highlighting love, societal expectation, secrecy and identity.