Matthew Ehizele Breathes Life into Steel

By Yinka Olatunbosun 

Retirement is often imagined as a season of rest. For sculptor and art scholar Matthew Ehizele, however, it has marked the beginning of an entirely new chapter. After more than four decades devoted to teaching and artistic practice, he has returned to the studio with renewed intensity, fashioning sculptures from steel that reaffirm both his technical mastery and his enduring creative vision. Ehizele lectured in the Department of Fine Arts at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, from 1986 to 2001 before continuing his academic career at the University of Benin until his retirement in 2023.

Standing before one of Ehizele’s sculptures at the National Museum, Onikan, last weekend, the industrial coldness of metal seemed to disappear. In its place stood living silhouettes—fluid, commanding forms that appeared almost capable of stepping from their plinths. His debut solo exhibition, Udu Ematon (Heart of Steel), is both a personal milestone and a compelling demonstration of how discarded steel can be transformed into eloquent reflections on resilience, identity and the human condition.

The exhibition also celebrates a figure whose influence on contemporary Nigerian sculpture extends far beyond the studio. An alumnus of the Federal Polytechnic, Auchi, and Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Ehizele brings to this body of work more than forty years of disciplined practice, scholarship and experimentation.

Where steel ordinarily signifies industry, permanence or decay, Ehizele subverts convention. Through painstaking welding, cutting and assembly, rigid plates become expressive bodies animated by grace and emotion. Welded seams assume the rhythm of muscles, while jagged scraps of reclaimed metal soften into the curve of a shoulder or the dignified bearing of a cultural icon.

Among the exhibition’s most arresting works is Water Goddess (2015), a monumental red steel figure balancing a water vessel. At once imposing and graceful, the sculpture celebrates feminine strength while quietly challenging assumptions about gender and vulnerability. The choice of steel—a material commonly associated with toughness—to embody womanhood gives the work additional symbolic force.

“Water is life,” Ehizele remarked during a guided tour of the exhibition. “The idea of going to the stream to fetch water is informed by the knowledge of Yemoja, the goddess of water.”

Beyond its sculptural elegance, Water Goddess was conceived as an interactive installation. In its complete form, water flows continuously from the vessel, transforming the work into a functioning fountain and reinforcing its life-affirming symbolism.

“The process of making this work was tedious. I had no apprentice,” said the 68-year-old artist, reflecting on the labour behind the sculpture.

Across Udu Ematon, the titles and themes draw deeply on Edo cosmology while speaking to broader questions of memory and identity. In Edo Princess (2015), lineage and cultural pride are expressed through weathered steel whose rusted surfaces retain the history of the material itself. Despite its industrial origins, the sculpture radiates warmth, dignity and quiet protection.

Elsewhere, Ehizele ventures beyond Benin history with Sango, inspired by the Yoruba god of thunder. Constructed from discarded automobile components and electrical parts, the sculpture ingeniously incorporates the head of a standing fan into its composition, conjuring the volatile energy and commanding presence associated with the deity. It is an imaginative demonstration of the artist’s ability to extract mythic power from industrial refuse.

What makes Udu Ematon particularly significant within Lagos’s contemporary art landscape is its refusal to treat metal merely as a modern industrial medium. Working from Benin City, itself a historic centre of African metallurgy, Ehizele positions his practice within a much older tradition of metalworking, forging a dialogue between ancestral craftsmanship and contemporary sculptural language.

Light plays an equally important role throughout the exhibition. The openwork construction of many sculptures allows shadows to become extensions of the forms themselves. Solid steel is balanced by carefully engineered voids, producing an interplay between mass and absence that reinforces the exhibition’s central metaphor: beneath every hardened exterior lies a vulnerable human heart.

The exhibition also carries a moving intergenerational resonance. Its opening was marked by a presentation from celebrated painter Duke Asidere, one of Ehizele’s former students. Their reunion offered a quiet reminder that the artist’s legacy extends beyond his sculptures to the generations of Nigerian artists shaped by his teaching.

Although scheduled to run for only a week, Udu Ematon leaves a lasting impression. It confirms Matthew Ehizele’s place among the country’s most accomplished sculptors while revealing an artist who continues to reinvent himself long after retirement. In his hands, discarded steel sheds its industrial past to become a vessel for memory, endurance and hope. The result is an exhibition that is technically assured, emotionally resonant and deeply rooted in the cultural imagination.