Ebenezer Samuel Akinola (born 1 December 1968), is a Nigerian artist and curator known for his work in portraiture, figurative and abstract African art.
[1] He is mostly known for his commissioned paintings of Nigerian presidents Nnamdi Azikiwe, Abdulsalami Abubakar and Olusegun Obasanjo which are displayed at the National Gallery of Modern Art, Lagos.
[8][9][10] He is a mentor to several contemporary Nigerian painters including Oluwole Omofemi,[11] Boluwatife Victoria Lawal,[12] Raji Mohammed,[13] Adeola Adegbenro,[14] Olatunji Awoyemi[15] and Ibraheem Sodiq;[16] with Omofemi crediting Akinola for introducing him to art galleries during initial stage of his career and Mohammed and Sodiq spending years as apprentices in his art studio.
[4] According to The Nation, the recurring theme in the paintings was the utilization of a plain backdrop that created a void for the figures and colors to exist in and Akinola's evident for earth tones.
Akinola's artistic portfolio has an emphasis on creating portraits and figurative studies, where he combines realistic and abstract elements and incorporates details.