Nigerian artist Dotun Popoola’s stunning metal sculpture shows ‘the beauty of Black women all over the world’

CNN — Celebrating the beauty of Blackness and protesting “environmental decadence” for a cleaner, waste-free future: that’s the vision of award-winning Nigerian metal sculptor and visual artist Dotun Popoola. “The work showcases the beauty of Black women all over the world,” Popoola said of the piece, which he began in 2022. Bryan Stevenson, founder and executive director at the Equal Justice Initiative, which set up the Legacy Museum said in an email: “We are thrilled to have Dotun Popoola’s extraordinary sculpture, Irinkemi Asake, at Freedom Monument Sculpture Park. Popoola’s work is well situated at our site because it brilliantly represents strength, beauty and resourcefulness which are precisely the attributes we want to celebrate among those who survived enslavement.” “Environmentalist, activist and artist” It’s a crowning achievement for Popoola, whose artistic flair emerged at a young age — although even then his output was unconventional.