Chief Mrs. Nike Monica Okundaye

Member, Board of Trustees

Chief Dr. (Mrs.) Oyenike Monica Okundaye popularly known and called “MAMA NIKE” by her numerous fans, was born on the m23rd May 1951 at a very quiet and hilly village of Ogidi-Ijumu in Kogi State of Nigeria. Nike is a multi-talented individual with a wide range of enduring fortitude. In her early life as a village girl, she was a stage dancer and later became an actress featuring as a lead actress in a local Yoruba film, “Ayaba”. In addition, she has also participated in many documentary films including “KINDRED SPIRITS” sponsored and produced by Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC, and a CNN feature documentary film “AFRICAN VOICES”. In January 2016, CNN again featured Nike in another documentary film “INSIDE AFRICA”. Nike then walked up the ladder to become a rare international icon in art. She is an accomplished professional artist; a painter, a textile artist, weaver, embroider, and awards winner at many national and international art shows. Nike is a member of many national and international professional bodies. She is also principally a social entrepreneur and a well-known philanthropist championing the cause of the neglected Nigerian rural women using art as a tool to accomplish these noble missions.

Nike is the Managing Director of Nike Centre for Art and Culture, Osogbo where she offers free training to all Nigerians in various forms of arts. The center was established in 1983 by Nike solely from her earnings as an artist and without government assistance. Nike opened this center with 20 young girls who were marching the streets in Osogbo aimlessly and who had no hopes for the future. In their tender age, Nike withdrew these girls from the streets and provided them with free food, free materials, and free accommodation at her residence at Osogbo and taught them how to use their hands to earn decent livings through the art. So far, over 3000 young Nigerians (mainly violated and abused young women) have been trained in the center and who are now earning their decent livings through art. Many African countries now send their students to study textile art at the center.

The Nike Centre for Art and Culture, Osogbo now admits undergraduate students from many universities in Nigeria for their industrial training programs in textile design. Over the years, this center now admits students from European countries, Canada, and the United States of America. International scholars and other researchers in traditional African art and culture also visit the center from time to time for their research work into Yoruba “Adire” fabric processing and African traditional dyeing methods.

Nike is also the Owner/Curator of the Nike Art Galleries at Lagos, Osogbo, Ogidi-Ijumu, and Abuja. In 1996, Nike established a textile (Aso-Oke) weaving center at Ogidi-Ijumu near Kabba in Kogi State for the women of the village, employing and empowering more than 200 rural women in the weaving center. In June 2002, Nike established an Art and Culture research center at Piwoyi village, FCT Abuja with an art gallery and a textile museum, the first of its kind in Nigeria which will provide a functional platform for research into Nigerian traditional textile industry in the Federal Capital Territory area of Abuja. In furtherance of these noble endeavours, Nike is currently the managing director and founder of the following organizations in Nigeria; “Nike Art Productions Limited” which she incorporated in 1994, “Nike Art Gallery Limited” which she incorporated in 2007 and the “Nike Research Centre for Art and Culture Limited” which she incorporated in 2007.

She has had 38 groups and over 116 solo exhibitions of her works in her professional artistic life. Nevertheless, her works can be found in many public and private holdings all over the world including; schools, colleges, universities, palaces, and museums. In fact, many academic papers and articles have been written and produced on her artworks by scholars across the globe. Her interactions cut across the divide; politicians and non-politicians, diplomats, scholars, businessmen and women, researchers, children, tourists, 111etc come on daily bases to visit Nike and her centers in Nigeria.