Today we’d like to introduce you to Adéọla Ayedun.
Hi Adéọla, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
Gosh, where do I even begin! For starters, I was born in Chicago, Illinois and I’m fortunate to have been raised in Seattle, Washington; Shanghai, China; Lagos, Nigeria and Brookhaven, Mississippi. Though being a full time artist now, at a young age, I did not view art as my potential career path. In my eyes, my older brother was the real artist and I was always curious and fascinated with his ability to drew anime and cartoon characters accurately, from memory.
After spending six years in Seattle, I moved to Shanghai, China, where I lived for two years. My Mom worked for Microsoft at the time and had a business opportunity there. She was passionate about art in all forms and decided to put me in piano classes. Learning piano was fun, and I was really good at it, but during my free time, I began to find a love for drawing. We had marble walls in our kitchen, which I draw on all the time with dry-erase markers, and if I was not drawing on the walls, I would draw in my school notebooks or scribble in coloring books.
From Shanghai, I moved to Lagos, Nigeria, where my dad is from. I lived here for about 8 years of my life and became more involved in the arts. I still continued to play the piano and began learning the violin too. I also took dancing classes even though I have two left feet, and over the summers, I took guitar classes and played softball in Brookhaven, Mississippi, where my mom is from. I still drew quite often between all these activities. Mainly on sticky notes in my mom’s office or on stacks of printer paper. Eventually, I got into fashion illustration and briefly designed patterns for LACE, a clothing design factory in Nigeria.
By thirteen, I began taking art more seriously and started taking digital art classes at Arena Multimedia. This institution offered career-oriented courses in animation, visual effects, game design, and more. Here, I found a great love for using Adobe software, and after finishing those courses at the age of fifteen, I started to hone in on my artistic craft by watching YouTube tutorials. Soon after, I begged my parents to let me continue my education at Mississippi School of the Arts (MSA), an art high school in Brookhaven, Mississippi. Taking this step meant leaving my family in Nigeria to follow my artistic dreams in America. My parents were reluctant at first but a PowerPoint presentation I created eventually persuaded them to comply. With MSA requiring no digital artwork, I quickly put together my first studio portfolio, applied, took part in a live audition, and eventually received my acceptance letter in the mail.
MSA taught me so much about painting, photography, installation art, and sculpting and it brought me many opportunities too. Through them, I won several gold keys, silver keys, and honorable mentions through the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards and I received the opportunity to showcase my work in the Mississippi Capital and the Mississippi Museum of Art, just to name a few.
When I graduated from MSA, I attended Delta State University (DSU) for two years, where I continued to see success in my art. I became a recipient of the DSU Student Show Scholarship Award for my piece Gele Lady, and I won the Mississippi Collegiate Art Competition in the category of Computer Imagery. Additionally, I received recognition from ArtFields for my piece, Primary Fuse, and participated in the 9InHandPress Print Exchange amongst artist all over the United States.
Today, I am currently executing my passions as a senior at Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) while earning a BFA in Concept Illustration for Animation and Games.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
It definitely has not been a smooth road, but I am blessed and fortunate to have loved ones that support me and amazing parents who provided the stepping stones for my artistic path. Drawing was not a gift I believe I was born with, nor was it a something that found me. It was something I had to look for, and if it was not for my dedication, hard work, passion, and the grace of God, I would not be where I am right now.
I struggled with my self-identity a lot growing up, mainly due to my family’s work-related, international travels and relocations. Living in China, and being the only black student in school, alongside my younger brother, was quite interesting. We always received curious stares from other students as we learned Mandarin, and our hair was always the center of attention. In many ways, it made me feel different and in other ways, completely out of place.
Self-identity was still a struggle for me when relocating to Lagos, Nigeria too. Initially excited to move to a place with more people like me, honestly turned out to be more of a cultural shock. Embarrassed to say but I did not know how to pronounce my name the “Nigerian” way until I moved there at the age of eight, and when I met other families who had also relocated to Nigeria, I went by my only American name, Sydney, to make it easier for non-Nigerian’s to address me. These experiences only further confused my selfimage, and not knowing how to speak Yoruba, my father’s native language, became more than a question of “Am I black enough” but “Am I Nigerian enough.” A lot of the time I found myself trying to fit in without betraying who I thought I was or who I wanted to become, and after a while, I had to find peace in being a multicultural and multi-faced individual.
During those confusing times, it was art that I turned to in a means to escape my reality. Today, however, I use it as a way to get lost in the stories I create by focusing on the characters I design and the journeys they must embark on. In ways, making up stories has helped me reflect on my own journey and self-identity.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I’m a freelance illustrator deeply interested in character design, background design, visual development, and 2D motion media. Primarily, I work digitally, and I alternate between realism and cartoonery, but I am open to a variety of different illustrative art forms as I feel it will only add to my skill set.
Unlike most artist who start traditionally, I began my journey as a digital artist, which really informed the way I worked traditionally. Over the years, my artistic direction and artist style has been ever-changing as I continue to grow and find my artistic voice. I find inspiration in the artwork of Disney veterans like Aaron Blaise and Sandro Cleuzo. I also find inspiration from illustrators that have worked for the industries I aspire to work for one day like Cécile Carre, Chris Ables, and Mila Useche, just to name a few. I do not tend to place myself in a box or look at my style as being something consistent, and I don’t intend for it to be right now. I’m proud of my ability to adapt to different art styles and match the voice of the project at hand, and this quality, I believe, sets me apart from other artists. Additionally, traveling the world and being placed in different cultural experiences has inspired the characters I create now and the characters I will continue to create.
Is there a quality that you most attribute to your success?
I have many qualities that have attributed to my success, but I think my persistence, curiosity, and teachability are three major qualities that fuels my journey towards success.
My mother has always told me I never accepted the word “no” as a kid, and this has carried over into my professional life, thus persistence being my first quality. It has always been rewarding to get accepted for opportunities but encountering some rejections along the way has never deterred me from my willingness to keep trying. So “no,” to me, really means “not right now” and I’ve grown to be okay with that response when applying myself to opportunities out of my current reach.
Secondly, I’ve always been a curious person, and I love asking questions, even the dumb ones because they’ve all been beneficial to my growth as an artist. Without curiosity, I wouldn’t have accomplished nearly as many things as I have thus far.
Lastly, I’ve been told that I am an easy person to teach, so out of all my qualities, I think my most valuable quality is my hunger to keep learning. Being a teachable person is such a valuable characteristic to have, and that characteristic alone has allowed me to accept constructive feedback, adapt to a variety of circumstances, and to be confident in my ability to improve.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://adeolaayedun.wixsite.com/illu
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adeola.ayedun/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100088568280166
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adeola-ayedun/
My Work
Photoshop
Akio & Moku
Photoshop
Saved By The Mermaid
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Through The Bushes
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Chasing Dreams
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Centaurette
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Playdate With My Bed Monster
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The Garden of Eden
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Toni The Wingless Dragon
