On this edition of Don’t Keep Your Art in the Finger!, we celebrate Pius Oiserieme Eborieme, known as “Mr. Total Panning” a sobriquet given to him by his students at Federal Polytechnic Auchi, Pius Oiserieme is a sculptor, teacher, and storyteller who turned Animal Sculpture into a language of its own. His works don’t just sit pretty, they actually communicate, challenge, and connect. For the uninitiated, Pius Oiserieme is a proud member of Auchi ’99 or Auchi Art Royale Class of 99.

Words Ireho Aito | Don’t Keep Your Art in the Finger! Images credit: Pius Oiserieme Eborieme

There is something arresting about Sacrifice, this is a sculpted animal head poised between stillness and speech. It feels ancient and contemporary at once, as though it carries memory in metal. This is the quiet power of Pius Oiserieme Eborieme, the artist fondly called “Mr. Total Panning,” whose work refuses to sit politely on a pedestal but speaks for you to remember.

At Federal Polytechnic Auchi in Edo State, a school so renowned for his colours and where he has spent over two decades shaping minds and metal alike, Pius did not just teach sculpture, he reframed it. In a space once dominated by conventional approaches to form, he introduced and popularised a motif that would become both identity and philosophy on that illustrious landscape society known as Animal Sculpture.

But to understand the motif, you must first understand the man himself and where he is coming from.

Born on January 23, 1973, in Afuze, Owan East of Edo State, Pius grew up with a gift that refused suppression. As a child at Emai Primary School, his hands were never still or tired. Pius was always carving, always forming. Yet, like many artists born ahead of their time, his earliest audience was not always kind. His father, a polygamous father, wary of a future he deemed unworthy, resisted the young boy’s passion with stern discipline. To him, carving belonged to “never-do-wells.” To Pius, it was a cool breath itself.

That tension between restriction and expression became the first forge of his artistic philosophy. His toughness sharpened and shaped him and by the time he completed his secondary education at Saint James’s Grammar School and later at Holy Trinity Grammar School, life had already begun testing his resolve.

Pius is a man of many parts. One thing you cannot take away from him is, his high level of industrious mien. His journey through life is funny, sympathetic, full of suspense and victories. At a time, he was so busy collecting odd jobs to survives. Clearing farmlands on contracts, a shoemaker at time during his Ibadan days. Stopping by to work briefly with the Nigerian Postal Service. But despite all this, the persistent reminder from an older sister that education must anchor his wandering spirit.

Architecture once called to him, but reality redirected him. Fine Art at Auchi became the path not by convenience, but by courage. There is a story often told in hushed admiration of a young Pius, unable to afford a mere fifty-naira transport fare, and found himself trekking 33 kilometres to school. Yet, no sign of weakness. That journey, though arduous, solitary and determined, echoes in his later works.

In the studio and classroom, Pius found not just purpose, but language. Specialising in Composition and Construction, he began to rethink sculptural form beyond the human figure and industrial abstraction. From the “junk” and metal assemblage traditions, he carved out something distinct from animals not as decorative forms, but as symbols of instinct, sacrifice, survival, and memory.
His Animal Sculpture motif is not about zoology, please don t get it wrong, it is about humanity disguised in hide and horn.

In works like Sacrifice, the animal becomes metaphor. The curved horns, the tension in the jaw, the quiet gaze, they speak of endurance, submission, power, and transcendence. In a world increasingly disconnected from its primal truths, Pius reintroduces us to them through form. His animals are not wild, rather, they are witnesses to events.

Students at Auchi saw this depth and responded in kind. They named their teacher “Mr. Total Panning” a term that speaks to his immersive, all-encompassing teaching style. He does not merely instruct the students, he finds ways to prepare them. His classes are not just about technique, but about life, discipline, resilience, and moral grounding. Perhaps it is no coincidence that he is also a pastor. His studio is as much a workshop as it is a place of reflection.

Beyond the classroom, Pius’s influence stretches across exhibitions and commissions, both local and international. As a member of the Society of Nigerian Artists and a founding force within the Sculpture Association of Nigeria, his works have occupied spaces where conversation meets craft. Yet, even in acclaim, he remains grounded by adapting his practice, choosing sustainability over excess without diluting his voice.

Technically, he is a master of metal, welding, assembling, and manipulating alloys into forms that feel organic despite their industrial origins. Conceptually, he is a storyteller, layering meaning into every curve and contour.

What makes Pius Oiserieme essential to this moment in contemporary Nigerian art is not just his innovation, but his insistence on freedom. From a boy punished for carving to a man who teaches others to create without fear, his life is a quiet rebellion against limitation.

And perhaps that is the real message behind the Animal Sculpture motif:
We are all, in some way, shaped by forces beyond us, be it tradition, struggle, expectation. But within us lies instinct, voice, and the capacity to transform.

So, when iBAND Magazine says Don’t Keep Your Art in the Finger!, Pius Oiserieme Eborieme stands as living proof.

Art is not meant to be hidden in hesitation. It is meant to walk, sometimes 33 kilometres if it must and until it finds its form.

iBAND Magazine, Celebrating Visual Arts from the Original.
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