Most people walk past old newspapers without a second thought. Timothy Olalekan Popoola turns them into art that moves — literally, capturing dancers and figures in motion from nothing but scraps and glue. This is how a fine art teacher from Osun State built a career out of what everyone else throws away.
Let’s start with you — who are you, and what does your work as a paper artist look like day to day? In a country where paper art isn’t always recognized as “fine art,” what drew you to pursuing it fully?
My name is Timothy Olalekan Popoola, and I hail from Ayedire Local Government in Osun State, Nigeria. I love making people happy, and that desire drew me to writing, drawing, pasting and teaching. In 2011, I graduated as the Overall Best Student from the Department of Fine Art, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. When I returned to Lagos and couldn’t find work, I started creating figures with paper in 2012.
I used my sister’s old newspapers — turning waste to wealth by using scraps to capture movement in figures. From the themes to the cutouts, many of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals are reflected in the work. That body of work gave me the opportunity to teach Art and Craft at Lara Day School, Ikeja. In 2017, I returned to my alma mater to research “The Effects of Light in the Landscape Paintings of Damola Adepoju.” That research earned me a Master’s degree in Art History. The work is now published in a book titled ”Through the Furnace of Creativity: A Publication for Damola Adepoju’s 50 th Birthday.”
Amazing introduction, and we can’t wait to hear how your work uses paper — often waste paper — to capture the human body in motion. What draws you to movement specifically as your subject, and where does that fascination come from? Do you find Nigerian audiences respond differently to seeing movement rendered in paper versus more familiar mediums like painting or sculpture? Sorry that the questions are put together; you can take them one after the other.
I lost my biological father in Primary 1, and I was raised by a single mother who sold live goats to support us. Coming from a struggling background, I found in Scripture that joy is the answer to depression, worry, and concern.
True, that is very true
When the future felt uncertain, I would pick up my paper and begin to depict movement — especially dancers. I was inspired by the paintings of Edosa Oguigo and the energy in his series of dancers. It was so therapeutic that I decided to join that league, but with paper.
For many Nigerian audiences, movement in paper feels new. Unlike painting or sculpture, people often do a double take — they think it’s pastel or paint until they come closer. That surprise opens a conversation.
What’s the most challenging part of working in this form — the sourcing, the physical toll of crumpling and shaping, getting people to see paper as “serious” art, something else entirely? And on the days that challenge feels heaviest, what keeps you going?
My art career is a journey, and the experiment continues. Working with paper is
also therapy for me. I can almost hear music and the sound of jubilation while I work with the scraps. That initial energy is what sustains me.
I’ve been privileged — in 2023, Dr. Mrs. Sanwo-Olu purchased three of my works and
encouraged me with kind words and gifts. However, it’s also true that some collectors still don’t take paper seriously. Sometimes they buy the work just to encourage me to “switch to oil or acrylic.” I don’t take offense. In fact, I’m now experimenting with mixed media, and the time has come to begin adding paint. But I still love paper. It started the journey, and it will always be part of it.
What’s a misconception Nigerians often have about paper as an art medium that you wish more people understood, and why do you think it matters for your process (the sourcing, the crumpling, the layering, the experimentation) to be documented and seen, not just the finished piece?
The biggest misconception is that paper isn’t a valuable medium of expression. As a result, most of my sales have come outside formal art exhibitions. What people miss is that this is upcycling — a way of reducing waste. In line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals, there’s a need to convert waste into something useful.
Turning waste paper into art requires applying acrylic, glue, or sealants to preserve the color and beauty. I’ve worked mostly with old newspapers, and it has expanded my teaching and leadership — showing how discarded materials can become objects of beauty. I believe my story can encourage the average Nigerian youth that everything big starts small.
Upcycling reduces cost and makes people think of possibilities. A good example is the
40,000-capacity Stadium 974 in Qatar, built from shipping containers for the FIFA World
Cup. Necessity, they say, is the mother of invention. Just like upcycled waste, I believe there is hope for Africa. The Almajiris in Northern Nigeria can return to school. The Fulani herdsmen, Boko Haram, and kidnappers can be transformed into agents of peace. All we need are innovative and creative leaders. As Patrick Awuah of Ashesi University, Ghana, said in 2007: “The question of transformation in Africa is really a question of leadership.” The philosophy of turning trash into treasure, like my paper-made art, affirms that fact.
What have been some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced building a career in this space in Nigeria, whether that’s sourcing materials, funding, visibility, or getting people to take paper art seriously — and what’s been lost when journeys like yours go undocumented or untold?
The biggest challenge has been funding — to finish and frame the works for exhibition. Some pieces get dirty, and I either trash them or give them out. I’ve also been exploited by gallery managers in my desperation for exhibition space. As of now, 16 of my works have been with Quintessence Gallery since 2024.
When journeys like mine go undocumented, we lose the proof that innovation can start from nothing. Young people lose examples of resilience, and the art world loses the record of how unconventional mediums are shaping Nigerian art.
If someone outside the art world stumbled on your work for the first time, what
do you want them to walk away understanding, not just about the piece, but about you, your medium, and where you think Nigerian visual art — especially unconventional mediums like this — is headed?
I want them to see possibility — that you can create something powerful from
almost zero cost. All it takes is patience. The first impression people have is that the medium is paint or pastel, until they come closer. But what stays with them is the movement — the energy in the figures.
Nigerian visual art, I believe unconventional mediums like paper will grow. They speak to our reality: resourcefulness, resilience, and finding beauty in what others have discarded. That is where our art is headed.
