Balogun is a well-recognized and prolific contemporary Nigerian artist. He has built a reputation in his prowess of manipulating and appropriating myriads of unusual materials as sculpture mediums. 

However, his artistry transcends the genre of sculpture, traversing other regions of the visual arts. He has an uncanny capacity for transforming mundane materials that have seemingly lost their primary purpose into objects of remarkable aesthetic contemplation, imbued with multilayered meanings.  

ARTIST’S STATEMENT

I explore disused objects or materials in my studio practice, neither due to shortage of fresh materials nor lack of resources to work with. Instead,  I recognize the need to respect the inherent value of every creation and transmute it in the realization of objects of contemplation and critical engagement without being devoid of aesthetic value. 

I “rescue” disused/found objects that are at times regarded as a menace as a way of giving them a new lease of life and meaning through my studio practice. They function as a stimulus for my creative engagement; thus, my artistic practice straddles the employment of a myriad of materials, processes, and deliberations. 

Conscious of the fact that every discarded or found object radiates with the previous history, latent energy, and possibilities, I consider it an onus to “collaborate” or imbue encountered materials with new meaning concerning existential issues that I feel strongly about. 

Lately, I have been exploring disused electronic panels as a way of alluding to the fact that nothing seems to be hidden in the era of digital technology; a concept I captioned “Labyrinthine Morphology”. 

Virtually, most matters hitherto regarded as being strictly confidential are now in the full glare of the public. This phenomenon is attributable to the quantum leap in the progress in the digital world. As such, the electronic panel, with its labyrinth of forms becomes a veritable visual metaphor for interrogating the new phenomenon in our human history. 

My visual deliberations span a wide range of issues as diverse as politics, nature, humanity, and survival via exploration of traditional and unusual sculpture materials serving as my vehicle of interrogation in a multilayered dimension. 

I firmly believe that each encountered object/material, like a strand in a spider web, has its role in making my work tick. Its character informs the context, process, and technique of engagement; this could either be traditional, innovative or combined.