Lasisi Babatunde Damilare 23/11/2025

Lasisi Babatunde Damilare, also known as Zuma, is a Nigerian visual artist born in 1994 and based in Lagos.

His work moves between painting, drawing and mixed media: acrylic, charcoal, coffee, newspaper and pigment layered into textured surfaces that feel both familiar and slightly surreal.

We are proud to introduce him as the seventh guest in our Appreciation Gallery.

Background

Lasisi’s relationship with drawing began in primary school, when a classroom assignment revealed a talent neither he nor his teacher could ignore.

Instead of following the path his family imagined for him, he chose the art track in secondary school and later studied Art and Design at The Polytechnic, Ibadan, where he encountered ceramics, textiles, graphics and sculpture for the first time.

After graduating, he honed his skills at the Universal Studios of Art in Lagos before going on to study Painting at Yaba College of Technology.

Those years turned drawing from a childhood discovery into a deliberate practice, a way to study form, texture and the social realities around him.

Today, Lasisi describes himself as a professional artist and a sojourner documenting the visual experiences of people living in this moment in time.

The Figures

What first catches the eye in his work are the bodies.

Exaggerated silhouettes, often plus-size, occupy the centre of the frame: shoulders broad, arms heavy, clothes resting calmly on volume.

These figures are not caricatures. They are a response.

Lasisi’s practice is rooted in the reality of body shaming and the quiet damage it creates: the pressure to alter oneself, the shame attached to softness, the idea that only one type of body deserves to be seen.

By enlarging his subjects, he reverses that logic.

The bodies people are taught to hide become monumental, calm, stylish and self-contained. In many works they read, play instruments, rest in parks or sit in living rooms, their presence normalised and honoured rather than questioned.

His figures are visual affirmations: an invitation to speak positively about ourselves and accept that we all come in different forms and shapes.

The Material

Lasisi’s canvases are built slowly.

He begins by texturing the surface, then layers acrylic, charcoal and sometimes coffee or newspaper to create depth.

Since 2019 he has worked mainly with acrylics, after stepping away from oil paint for health reasons, but the spirit of experimentation remains central to his process, the studio as a place to test what different materials can say when placed together.

The results are scenes that feel both everyday and heightened: a woman reading in the grass, a musician mid-performance, a conversation in a living room, figures waiting by cars or market stalls.

Within these compositions, clothing and posture carry as much weight as faces. Patterned dresses, striped tops, tailored jackets, headwraps and bags become extensions of personality and mood.

In that sense, his paintings sit close to the world we move in at Zongoville, where fabric, fit and gesture say what words often do not. Quiet on the outside, loud in the details.

The Chronicles

A turning point in Lasisi’s practice came with The Chronicles, an exhibition presented with Jadé Art in 2020.

Originally planned as a physical show, it moved online during the COVID-19 lockdown. The works were among the first where he fully committed to his exaggerated figures, a visual journal of heartbreak, loneliness, self-therapy through music and the decision to take his craft more seriously.

Like many artists at that moment, he faced uncertainty about sales and visibility while audiences were confined to their homes. Yet the response to The Chronicles was strong; the show sparked conversations about his style and led collectors to his work, marking the beginning of a new chapter in his career.

Since then, his paintings have travelled through fairs, group exhibitions and collections within Nigeria and abroad, while he continues to expand his visual language one textured surface at a time.

The Sojourner’s Diary

The Sojourner’s Diary is Lasisi’s second solo exhibition, shown at Galerie DIDA in Abidjan. The show marks how his work now travels beyond Nigeria, while his textured, magnified figures continue to define his visual language.

It signals a growing international reach, with his themes of presence, movement and everyday life resonating across borders.

What We Want (Note Series)

What We Want (Note Series) marked another focused moment in Lasisi’s practice. Presented as a solo exhibition at Août, a Lebanon-based studio, showing even more evidence of international traction. The show brought together works built from his familiar mix of drawing, painting and experimental materials, used as tools for social commentary.

In these pieces, Lasisi continued his exploration of magnified forms and layered surfaces, using scale, texture and everyday imagery to reflect on the realities within his environment. The exhibition highlighted his instinct to move between materials and ideas, finding poetry in ordinary scenes and translating that into compositions that speak both to him and to his audience.

Reflection

At Zongoville we are drawn to artists who move from the inside out, who build from lived experience and then translate that into form, texture and silhouette.

Lasisi’s work does exactly that.

He turns social commentary into something intimate: a plus-size figure at rest, a quiet exchange, a body taking up space without apology. His canvases remind us that dignity can look like softness, that presence does not have to shout to be powerful.

In our world of quiet streetwear, we think about bodies all the time, how clothes sit on them, how they move through cities, how identity is carried in the way someone stands, reads, plays or simply exists. Lasisi’s paintings echo that mindset. They honour the everyday stage where identity, style and self-acceptance meet.