By Tobijulo Onifade

Multipotentiality

“An educational and psychological term referring to a pattern found among intellectually gifted individuals. [Multipotentialites] generally have diverse interests across numerous domains and may be capable of success in many endeavours or professions, they are confronted with unique decisions as a result of these choices.”
– Wiki Link

According to Emilie Wapnick, a Multipotentialite is someone with many interests and creative pursuits, someone who has no “One true calling”, someone who has many paths and pursuits all, someone like Iniabasi Itami.

Ini Itami a Bsc Mass Communication holder, is a Broadcaster, Writer, and an artist and although she has many interests, Art remains her true love according to an interview with Farabale weekly. Ini’s work can best be described as abstract and she draws influence from the Bible and societal issues like feminism, mental health, and others.

Ini Itama

Her last exhibition at Backyard, Lekki, Lagos in 2016 was titled, the Eve of a woman, which means the original source of life. The Eve of a woman was a collection of abstract portraits, which was influenced, by her mother and the ability she and many other women have to send signals and messages with their facial expressions. This exhibition was a celebratory response to International Women’s Day. What made her work memorable is the fact that most of the works are not realistic in that it did not imitate/bear a canny likeness to the female facial structure, instead what Ini Itama did was to use colours, shapes, and lines to convey the message of the facial expressions which was brilliant.

With an affinity for colours, patterns, and many others, it is clear that this talented mixed media artist has come to stay.

To see more of her art and read more about her, please visit her Art635 page.