We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jonathan Adamu. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jonathan below.

Jonathan, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. The first dollar your business earns is always special and we’d love to hear how your brand made its first dollar of revenue.

Interestingly enough my first client was my dad, I’d always been an artist. So I was always drawing for the most part, then eventually I started painting, when he noticed my Paintings he gave me my first commission to paint a public figure.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Well, like I’d said earlier, I’ve always been an artist, was basically born with a pencil in hand, art always came easily to me, it was and still is a language I can easily understand, creating was and is second nature, and the more I grew in it the more it made more sense.
I’d done a couple of competitions and participated in school projects in my elementary and high school, not to brag but I was almost always the best, studying art in university felt like the next best step and I did, I’d majored in art history but during that period I was a full time studio artist. Did that for a while then I became the curator of one of the biggest galleries in Abuja, Orisun Gallery, from 2021-2024.

As an artist I like to say I create as the spirit leads so when it comes to my medium I don’t have a specific, I mainly shuffle between graphite, acrylic and oil paint. I pride myself as a portrait artist though I’m not limited to just that.

As an artist and a curator my focus has always been on building bridges through relationships and community and it shows with how I handle my business. Relationships come first especially in a business as subjective as art.

For the most part I’m an artist, curator, art dealer and art consultant.

I want people to know I take care of artist and their interests and that always comes first.

I would say my proudest moment or rather moments is when I started a series of group digital Exhibitons in Abuja and growing and expanding on the message and relevance of digital art.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

A lesson I had to unlearn was being overly trusting, which led to a new lesson which was to always have a clear contract in writing as not to be taken for granted.

Another is was I’d undercharged and after I’d finished the project made little to know profit.

I’d completed a painting for a client and had delivered, he’d pointed out some things that could be redone on the Painting I’d agreed and he refused to pay the balance after, it was frustrating because it was quite a large painting

How did you build your audience on social media?

Well I built my audience in two ways creating engaging content to build community, also doing what I do as an artist and a curator I get to meet a lot of people so sometimes we exchange social media handles. Plus my brand and identity has been able to grow organically. Posting about my process, creating art and preparing for exhibitions.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: Itzz_jonathan
• Linkedin: Jonathan Adamu
• Twitter: Itzz_jonathan

Image Credits

Smart sokoga