Lagos provides artists with almost too much material: traffic, markets, buses, bodies, noise, rain and constant movement. For Sola Olumuyiwa, the city becomes more than a subject. It becomes a space for observing time, people, memory and the stories that often pass unnoticed.
Known as the ambassador, his latest exhibition, Echoes of the Commute, opens at Mydrim Gallery, Lagos, on October 10. It follows First Insight and A Few Minutes After, continuing his exploration of watercolour as both medium and visual language.
As he puts it, “Stories do not fade – they stain the silence of time.”
Words Ireho Aito | Don’t Keep Your Art in the Finger! Photographs and images courtesy Sola Olumuyiwa
Lagos is the land for the dreamers. The dreamers see Lagos as the city of opportunities. Yet, for the dreams to become reality, they need that extra push, which is to commute and actualise their dreams.
Sola Olumuyiwa’s Lagos experience comes alive in his paintings, perhaps because the city is not only a place he observes but one that has shaped his own story. He schooled in Lagos, where he earned a Higher National Diploma in Fine Art, majoring in Painting, from the Federal College of Technology. That familiarity with the city gives the scenes he paints a personal connection.
His watercolours bring these ordinary scenes into focus without taking away their fleeting nature. Echoes of the Commute, his latest exhibition, continues a conversation that began with First Insight and A Few Minutes After…, three stages of looking, remembering and understanding what remains with us.
Curator and culture expert Dr. Mudiare Onobrakpeya, who has followed and written extensively about Nigerian visual art through his work with Adunmadan Magazine, captures the exhibition from another perspective: “Lagos is a city one can never entirely control, and very refreshing are the visions of Muyiwa in watercolour.”
In this conversation with iBAND Magazine, Sola Olumuyiwa speaks about the relationship between his three watercolour exhibitions, his emotional connection to painting, the everyday Nigerian reality that informs his visual language, and what he wants audiences to see when they encounter Echoes of the Commute.
iBAND: Echoes of the Commute, First Insight and A Few Minutes After are three exhibitions from your watercolour experience. What are the relationships we seem to see in these exhibitions?
Sola Olumuyiwa: I see First Insight, A Few Minutes After..., and Echoes of the Commute as three chapters of one continuing artistic journey, connected by my exploration of time, movement, human experience, and memory.
First Insight is about seeing and discovering my early exploration of watercolour as a language for observing life.
A Few Minutes After…, moves into memory and reflection, what remains emotionally after a moment has passed.
Echoes of the Commute extends that idea into the movement of everyday life, using the commute as a metaphor for our journey through time, relationships, and experiences.
In simple terms: First Insight is about seeing; A Few Minutes After…, is about remembering; Echoes of the Commute is about moving forward with those memories.
Together, they reflect my continuing interest in the fleeting nature of life and the traces that our experiences leave behind.
iBAND: Why did you choose Mydrim Gallery in Lagos for this exhibition, Echoes of the Commute?
Sola Olumuyiwa: I chose Mydrim Gallery because it connects naturally with the spirit of Echoes of the Commute. Lagos is a city of constant movement, and the gallery provides a contemporary space where the rhythms, encounters, and stories of everyday Lagos life can be experienced through my watercolour works.
For me, Mydrim is not just a venue; it becomes part of the conversation between the city, the artwork, and the audience.
iBAND: First Insight seemed to mark an important moment when you began to understand watercolour not just as a medium, but as a language. What has changed in your relationship with watercolour since that exhibition?
Sola Olumuyiwa: First Insight was a turning point in my journey because I began to understand watercolour not simply as a medium, but as a language. Since then, my practice has evolved significantly, from learning to control the medium to learning when to surrender to it.
I have moved from primarily observing and representing what I see to exploring the emotions, memories, relationships, and stories beneath those images. My work has also become more experimental in scale, composition, layering, transparency, light, and the unpredictable movement of water and pigment.
Most importantly, my practice has evolved from painting moments to questioning them. I am increasingly interested in what a moment means, what it leaves behind, and how it continues to live in our memory.
Today, watercolour has become an integral part of my artistic thinking. It allows me to connect my personal experiences and observations of Nigerian life with broader questions of time, identity, human connection, and memory.
I am no longer simply using watercolour to make images; I am using it to develop a visual language that reflects how I see, experience, and interpret the world.
iBAND: A Few Minutes After… That exhibition was too emotional to bear. What do you always give in while on your painting journey? Do you get emotional too in your painting?
Sola Olumuyiwa: A Few Minutes After… was deeply personal for me, and yes, I become emotional while painting. I give a part of myself to the work, my memories, vulnerability, empathy, and personal experiences.
Sometimes, painting means revisiting memories and emotions I would rather leave behind, and allowing myself to be vulnerable enough to express them honestly. That is the emotional sacrifice I make.
Watercolour makes this even more intimate because of its fluid and unpredictable nature. I surrender to the movement of water and pigment, allowing them to carry emotions through transparency, light, and movement.
So, I am not only painting what I remember; I am giving something of myself to the painting.
iBAND: This time, you are still on the environmental issue with the same social commentary bias. What do you want everyone to see or communicate in Echoes of the Commute?
Sola Olumuyiwa: With Echoes of the Commute, I want people to look beyond traffic and the physical environment and see the human stories within movement.
Every commute is filled with moments, people are waiting, rushing, feeling the encounters, solitude, conversations, frustration, hope, and quiet reflection. We move through the city every day, often without noticing how much those moments shape us.
Through watercolour, I want to capture those fleeting experiences such as the movement, transparency, light, and emotion that exist between one moment and the next.
Ultimately, I want viewers to recognise something of their own journey in the works and reflect on the moments we pass through, the people we encounter, and the memories we carry with us.
iBAND: The commute is something millions of people experience every day, yet we rarely stop to look at the people, gestures and stories around us. What did you begin to notice differently when you started observing Lagos through the idea of the commute?
Sola Olumuyiwa: When I began observing Lagos through the idea of the commute, I started looking beyond the traffic to the people and stories within the movement. I started noticing their gestures, expressions, waiting, rushing, and brief encounters.
Watercolour helped me capture these fleeting moments through fluidity, transparency, and movement.
I began to see the commute not simply as a journey, but as a collection of human moments constantly passing through us.
iBAND: Many of the works may appear to go beyond traffic and transportation to speak about waiting, movement, anticipation, livelihood and human relationships. At what point did the everyday commute become a metaphor for life for you?
Sola Olumuyiwa: It became a metaphor for life when I realised that a commute is not only about getting somewhere; it is about what happens along the way.
We wait, move, pause, meet people, face uncertainty and keep going. Along the way, these everyday moments become part of the journey, making the commute a reflection of life itself.
Those experiences mirror life itself.
Through Echoes of the Commute, I use those everyday moments to reflect on movement, anticipation, livelihood, relationships, and the passage of time.
iBAND: There is a strong sense of movement in your watercolours, even when the figures themselves appear still. How do you create that feeling of movement on a stationary sheet of paper?
Sola Olumuyiwa: For me, creating movement starts with how I handle water and pigment. I work with wet-on-wet washes, controlled blooms, layered transparent glazes, and loose, directional brushstrokes. I also allow pigment to flow and merge naturally in certain areas, while keeping selected edges sharper to create contrast and visual tension.
I use diagonal compositions, broken edges, overlapping forms, and changes in value to guide the eye across the paper. Even when the figures are still, these elements create a sense of movement around them.
I want the viewer’s eye to keep travelling through the painting, just as people keep moving through Lagos.
iBAND: You have worked as a painter, illustrator, graphic artist and brand strategist, with years of experience in the advertising world. How have those different creative experiences influenced the way you now see and paint everyday life?
Sola Olumuyiwa: Those experiences taught me to observe closely, communicate clearly, and find meaning in ordinary moments. Advertising trained me to understand visual storytelling, composition, rhythm, and how an image can communicate an idea quickly.
Painting, however, gave me the freedom to slow down and explore what lies beneath the image, the emotions, memories, relationships, and stories behind everyday life.
Today, I bring both perspectives into my watercolour practice: the discipline of a communicator and the sensitivity of a painter. That combination influences how I observe Lagos and transform ordinary moments into visual narratives.
iBAND: Can you share some of the titles of works the audience will see on October 10?
Sola Olumuyiwa: Yes. The audience will see works such as A Pause in Time, Step of Joy, Ìgbà Kan (Once Upon a Time), 20 Children (Ògún Ọmọdé), Urban Dilemmas, Oshodi Òkè, Galloping Shadows, Cashless (POS), Homecoming, Meeting Point, and A Royal Welcome, among others.
Each work approaches the idea of the commute differently through movement, people, waiting, culture, livelihood, and those fleeting moments we often overlook.
iBAND: How important is our everyday Nigerian reality to your visual language?
Sola Olumuyiwa: Our everyday Nigerian reality is very important to my visual language. The people, movement, environment, culture, livelihood, waiting, encounters, and fleeting moments within everyday life all influence how I see and paint.
The works explore these realities not simply as subjects, but as experiences that shape our memories and understanding of life.
iBAND: What is the next step after this exhibition for you?
Sola Olumuyiwa: After Echoes of the Commute, I want to continue pushing my watercolour practice, experimenting with scale, abstraction, transparency, and new ways of using water and pigment.
I also want to deepen the conversations around contemporary watercolour in Nigeria and internationally.
For me, the journey continues: each exhibition is not an ending, but another step in discovering what watercolour can become.
Echoes of the Commute runs from October 10 to 24 at Mydrim Gallery, 74 Norman Williams Street, Ikoyi, Lagos.
iBAND Magazine, Celebrating Visual Art from the Original.
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