About Me

Dr.délé jẹ́gẹ́dẹ́, Professor Emeritus of Miami University, Oxford, Ohio,  has over four decades of experience as artist, art historian, painter,  cartoonist, art critic, curator, and art administrator. After a  first-class honors degree in studio art from the Ahmadu Bello  University, Zaria, Nigeria, he obtained his Masters and doctorate  degrees from Indiana University, Bloomington, where he studied under  Professor Roy Sieber.

His professional experience includes several solo  and group exhibitions in Nigeria and the U.S and a long list of  scholarly publications. He has authored several monographs, essays, and  reviews on diverse aspects of African, and African-American art. He  began his career at the Daily Times of Nigeria as Art Editor and  cartoonist before moving to the University of Lagos, Akoka, Yaba,  Nigeria, where he eventually became the Director of the Center for Cultural  Studies before moving to the U.S. in 1993 with his family. 

He was  Fulbright Scholar, Spelman College, Atlanta, Georgia (1987-1988);  President, Society of Nigerian Artists (1989-1992); President, Arts  Council of the African Studies Association (ACASA) (1996-1998). In 1995,  he was Senior Post-Doctoral Fellow at the National Museum of African  Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. 

His academic  administrative positions included Professor and Chair of Department at  Indiana State University, Terre Haute (IN), and Miami University,  Oxford, (OH). He is recipient of the Distinguished Africanist Award of  the University of Texas at Austin. Professor jẹ́gẹ́dẹ́ is actively engaged  in full-time art-making. His recent exhibition—Transitions—at Terra Kulture in Lagos (July 14th-23rd, 2016) was a tremendous success. His 2020 publication, Akinola Lasekan: Cartooning, Art, and Nationalism at the dawn of a New Nigeria. remains the definitive work on this pioneer Nigerian cartoonist. He is a full-time artist and scholar.

The notion of art is predicated upon its multivalency: its capacity to inspire, disrupt, exasperate, mesmerize, cajole, console, imbue, and catalyze reactions, ideas, and feelings that are often at variance with the artist’s intentions. I see art as the physical manifestation of fugitive and enigmatic impulses, searing emotionalities, or pulsating imaginaries. It is an active valve for the release of a variety of expressivities. 

My creative temper treats art as a battleground for creative engagement—for intellection that operates on individualized registers with its own idiosyncratic syntax. At times, it is a zone of contention where I exorcise my demons and splay them out on canvas. At other times, art is the funnel through which I purge myself of the visceral anguish that continually assaults my dignity and sensibilities. My art is a response to social constructs that seek to normalize subaltern conditions for people who look like me.

Sustained attempts at demonizing, incarcerating, and subjugating minorities culminated in the George Floyd imbroglio that provoked massive global protestations. Racism, blatant injustice, political aggrandizement, impunity, and intolerance, divergent or contrarian perspectives: all of these provide fillip for my creative muse. All of these reify my conviction that the arc of my aesthetics must bear witness; it must tilt toward a critique of a socio-political responsiveness by those who are elected, appointed, or otherwise empowered as objective superintendents of social, religious, and political relationships. My work seeks to contribute to the ethos of the artist as a prognosticator and chronicler.