Stories told with pen & paper

Dahiru Mai was born in Wuro Hausa, a small village in Adamawa, Yola south, this is where he spent the first 8 years of his life. He remembers fondly how involved his Maternal grandparents were in his childhood. He speaks three languages, including his native language of Fulfulde (Fulani).

Art, for Mai, comes from ideas journaled and while some of his works are quite imaginative, his creativity is often fueled by spontaneous bursts of inspiration from simple moments like night drives in Abuja, reading articles and watching television.

It’s quite difficult to imagine Mai watching television as his art has adopted an air of studious reverie and to further reverberate this, he made a few recommendations;

1. Death on the Nile

2. Mind your language

3. Friends

4. Fresh Prince of Bel Air

5. John Wick.

Photography and traveling are important to the formative stages of his works. He is often in the NorthEast region accompanied by his camera, all pictures taken are in black and white much like his art.

The bulk of his journey has been to states such as Gombe, Bauchi, Jigawa, Katsina, Kano, Niger, Plateau and Taraba state.

He is quite festive and spends time in Kano during Eid for the Durba festival as well as Adamawa for Sukuwa and Kilisa festivals.

As a self taught artist and an art researcher, currently enrolled at the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) where he studies Civil engineering, he shuffles between Abuja, Kaduna and Adamawa.

In Adamawa his hot takes are Tuwo & Miyan Kuka, Kunun Geda (which he considers to be the best northern beverage) and the two rivers in the Mayo Belwa village. Mayo Manga (big river) does not get a lot of activity. However, Mayo Petel (small river) pulls the crowd as the water current is easy to navigate, it never gets full. Many children play here and locals come to do the washing of clothes and quite often the current is able to take their clothes away, the ruckus from this is accompanied by a lot of laughter by observers.

This I believe captures the essence of Dahiru Mai whom I’d describe as a keen observer, always watching.

To this Abuja based artist, Black and white gives a better representation, colors are loud while black and white remains simple and calm.

Dahiru might be able to convince people he is just the boy next door. However, he got started with Technical drawing classes, specifically ‘’perspective drawing’’.

His creative process is a mishmash of quiet spaces, a lot of work is done at midnight while listening to Quran recitations or lectures.

Culturally Northern with a cultivated interest in ancient civilizations has enabled Mai to pursue a pictorial form of Historical analysis of the communities involved in the Trans-Saharan trade.

He favors the use of fine line pens such as unipin, micron and sta or pencils on emborse paper (which has a strong texture) or preferably watercolor paper which works well for his drawing.  Much of his supplies are sourced from Turkey, USA & the UK.

A very fascinating thing about Dahiru is how he is not trying to be futuristic and has been more inclined to the past.

Within his 8 years as an artist he has had three exhibitions, the latest ASE which was his first solo exhibition. He was part of the Abuja open house in 2022 and the Katsina Talent hunt in 2021.

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