Hassan Aliyu

Artist, curator, commentator and cultural ambassador

Dr Hassan Aliyu (DProf), FRSA is a British-born Nigerian artist whose acclaimed collaged paintings examine Africa’s historical trajectories and contemporary realities through the intertwined legacies of slavery, colonialism, global capitalism, migration and social justice. Working across painting, collage, installation and moving image, he explores how histories of extraction continue to shape the political, economic and cultural conditions of the present.

Aliyu is President of the Nigeria Art Society UK (NASUK), a Member of the Guild of Professional Fine Artists of Nigeria (MGFA), and a Trustee and Board Secretary of 198 Contemporary Arts & Learning. His leadership across these organisations reflects a longstanding commitment to advancing Nigerian and diasporic art through exhibition-making, scholarship and international cultural exchange.

Born in London in 1964 to Nigerian parents who had migrated to Britain before Nigerian independence, Aliyu’s early life was shaped by migration, displacement and questions of belonging. Following experiences of racial hostility in Britain, he and his twin sister were sent to live with their paternal grandmother in Auchi, Edo State, where they became caught up in the Nigerian Civil War (1967–70). These formative experiences of conflict, separation and resilience continue to underpin both his creative practice and scholarly research.

After the war, Aliyu was reunited with his mother in Zaria, Kaduna State, where he developed an early conviction that “my calling in life was to be an artist”. Despite family expectations that he would study law or political science, he pursued Fine Art at Ahmadu Bello University, graduating in 1986 with the Nigeria Art Council Award for Best Final Year Student.

The economic austerity of Nigeria’s Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) profoundly influenced his artistic development. Faced with severe shortages of imported art materials, Aliyu turned to discarded consumer packaging and everyday printed matter, transforming them into a distinctive visual language that interrogates consumer culture, commodity exchange, economic inequality and the enduring structures of global capitalism.

Beginning his professional career in Lagos, he became part of a new generation of Nigerian artists who established independent platforms for exhibition and artistic dialogue. This commitment to artist-led cultural development continues to inform his leadership of NASUK, where he has championed exhibitions, conferences and international collaborations connecting artists across Africa and its diaspora.

In 1990, Aliyu travelled to Britain following an invitation to exhibit, intending only a temporary stay. Political instability and economic uncertainty in Nigeria ultimately led him to remain in the United Kingdom, where he rebuilt his artistic career while negotiating the structural barriers and exclusions that have long shaped Britain’s cultural institutions.

His doctoral research, Enslaved by Debt: An Artistic Exploration of Africa’s Colonial Legacy, extends his investigation into the enduring relationships between slavery, colonialism, debt and contemporary global finance. Drawing upon more than two decades of experience in international investment banking, he offers a distinctive perspective that connects financial markets, commodity economies and historical systems of extraction with contemporary artistic practice.

Recent exhibitions include Epic Journeys, a forty-year retrospective presented at Wolfson College Cambridge and ArtSpace5-7, Cambridge (2026); Legacies of Biafra, Iwalewahaus, Bayreuth, Germany (2025); The Carnivalesque: Body, Mind & Spirit, Noho Showrooms, London (2025); and The Blue Between Us, Rele, London (2025). His work has also featured in Waves of Change: Artistic Journeys from Nigeria to Britain, a Special Project at the 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair, London (2024); More Than Meets the Eye, Rele, London (2024); Convergence, Guild of Professional Fine Artists of Nigeria Annual Exhibition (2024); and Shared Horizons, presented as part of the 15th Havana Biennial (2024–25).

Through his artistic practice, scholarship and cultural leadership, Dr Hassan Aliyu continues to illuminate the enduring connections between history and the present, demonstrating how art can confront injustice, deepen historical understanding and imagine more equitable futures.