Gasali Adeyemo
Fiber arts, Nigeria
Gasali Adeyemo
Fiber arts, Nigeria
My name is Gasali Onireke Adeyemo. I am the third born of five from a small rural village, Offatedo, located in Osun State, Nigeria. My mother is a trader and my father, a farmer. Although my family was rich in spirit and culture, we were poor in capital and I sponsored my own education throughout my years at St. George Elementary and Ido Osun High School.

From a very young age, I realized my artistic potential and I would attend social gatherings, such as weddings, naming and burial ceremonies, and other cultural parties offering to sketch portraits of the guest, for a small donation. My sketching career combined with long, hard days working on the village farms provided adequate income to successfully complete my academic education through high school.

At this point, my attention turned to improving upon my artistic potential. I discovered the Nike Center for Arts and Culture in 1990, where I remained for a total of six years. The first two years of my experience at the Nike Center was spent mastering the arts of batik painting on fabric, indigo dyeing, quilt making, embroidery, applique, and batik painting on rice paper. During the following four years, I spent long days teaching these skills to incoming students at the Nike Center.
Eventually, the popularity of the Nike Center grew and hundreds of people came to Osogbo, Nigeria from all over the world to study and enrich their knowledge and understanding of the arts and culture of the Yoruba people. I spent much of my time conducting workshops and training people in the crafts of my culture.

In 1995, my long years of service and dedication to the Nike Center paid off, and my artwork was exhibited in Bayreuth, Germany, alongside the work of five other artists from Nigeria. My work made quite an impact, and many people traveled to Osogbo looking for the artist named Gasali. People who were exposed to my work later commissioned me to do quilt work and other pieces and my artistic career truly began to bloom.

In 1996 the opportunity arose to travel outside of Nigeria for the first time in my life. A woman named Karen came to Osogbo, Nigeria through an exchange program from America. We met and did workshops together. Impressed with my work, she invited me to come to the University of Iowa to do a series of exhibitions and workshops. Once there, the Octagon Gallery in Ames, Iowa took notice of my work and offered to exhibit it. I was also invited to work with a group of teenagers doing storytelling and art workshops to share with them the traditions of my own Yoruba culture.

These experiences in Iowa opened the door to greater opportunities. I have traveled across the U.S conducting more workshops and exhibitions. In the future, I plan to continue to travel worldwide, sharing the arts and culture of the Yoruba people of Nigeria. I currently reside in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

UPCOMING WORKSHOPS, 2023

January 24-29, 2023
North Country Studio Workshops in Bennington, VT
Traditional Adire Eleko & Tie-dye with Indigo Workshop

May 28 - June 2, 2023
Penland School of Craft in Penland, NC
Traditional Adire Eleko & Tie-dye with Indigo Workshop

June 12-16, 2023
Textile Center of Minnesota in Minneapolis, MN
Traditional Adire Eleko & Tie-dye with Indigo Workshop

July 14 - 16, 2023
Austin School of Fiber Arts in Austin, TX
Traditional Yoruba Batik on Rice Paper Workshop

July 28 - August 1, 2023
Peters Valley School of Craft in Layton, NJ
Traditional Yoruba Batik with Multiple Colors Workshop

August 6-11, 2023
Arrowmont School of Arts & Crafts in Gatlinburg, TN
Traditional Yoruba Batik with Multiple Colors Workshop

August 14-19, 2023
Snow Farm in Williamsburg, MA
Traditional Yoruba Batik, Adire Eleko and Tie-dye Workshop

September 3-8, 2023
John C. Campbell Folk School in Williamsburg, MA
Traditional Yoruba Batik, Adire Eleko and Tie-dye Workshop

September 9-11, 2023
Southeast Fiber Arts Alliance in Chamblee, GA
Traditional Yoruba Adire Eleko and Tie-dye Workshop

September 22-24, 2023
Schweinfurth Art Center in Auburn, NY
Traditional Yoruba Batik with Indigo Workshop

January 26-19, 2024
Aya Fiber Studio in Stuart, FL
Traditional Yoruba Batik with Multiple Colors Workshop


RECENTLY IN THE PRESS

Article in BellaNaija, Dec. 2022
Gasali Adeyemo on Designing the Batik Fabrics in The Woman King

Article in The Hindu, Nov. 2017
The dye that brings the world together

Article in The Hindu, Nov. 2012
The indigo chronicle

Article in The Times of India
Dyeing to get it right

Video of me at the ISEND Conference

Article in the Epoch Times, August 2012:
Santa Fe Art Market Brings Joy and Prosperity to Indigo Artist


Interview that Santafe.com did with me:
Tricks of the Craft: An Interview with Gasali Adeyemo




For a list of my Exhibitions and Workshops, click here


these pages submitted to africancraft.com by Gasali Adeyemo, May. 2005 -- last updated, May. 2023