Paul Ayihawu is a contemporary Nigerian artist known for reimagining Black identity through a lens unclouded by the legacy of colonialism. Based in Lagos, he works across a range of mediums, including charcoal, acrylic, oil, and mixed media, often combining them within a single composition.

In 2022, Ayihawu was awarded a Visiting Fellowship at the Noldor Artist Residency in Accra, a program affiliated with the Institute Museum of Ghana, which placed him within a growing network of contemporary West African artists.

Ayihawu's practice centers on portraiture that imagines Black life and culture as it might have developed absent colonial disruption. His figures, frequently rendered in flipped or reversed poses, are dressed in a hybrid of Western and African clothing, a device he uses to explore questions of hybridity, memory, and self-determination. He has described his aim as picturing how Africa and its people might have evolved had colonization never taken place. His recent work has increasingly turned toward spirituality, drawing on his Christian faith as a guiding thread in his practice.

Thematically, Ayihawu is drawn to the untold and unheard stories of the Black community, using his figures to give voice to social and cultural narratives that colonial history tended to suppress. His work has entered private and institutional collections in the United States, South Africa, and Nigeria, and is held in notable collections including the Africa First Collection and the Sir David Adjaye Collection. His paintings have been shown through galleries such as TAAG Gallery, Constance and Sons Gallery, and Afrikanizm Art.

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