Ademola Akintola has a calmness and kindness that strikes you immediately. Setting out at eighteen from his native Nigeria to travel the whole of Africa (it took five years), Akintola is a visual artist who has always gone his own way just for adventure's sake. He says of that epic journey "I wanted to know the world around me, the African environment that was different from my own culture. And, I wanted to prove that I could survive with just my art, painting, selling and gaining confidence." Akintola turned down a place at art college in order to make an immediate start to his career as an artist . At the beginining he supported himself by teaching in an elementary school, "I used illustration to teach - not realising that their teacher always peeked through the window to see how I was doing it!" The impact of his work went beyond the classroom walls; "When I was in Mali,sometimes I would paint and people would come to watch, even illiterates. And though my work was not figurative, I knew I could communicate and they could absorb certain information anyway..." Akintola moved permanently to the UK in 1990 after a completing a number of residencies and found that resources here were more readily available. "In Nigeria you cannot find the right materials to work with immediately - here I'll go to an art shop and spend! And now my wife will say "Oh - you've been out to buy your toys again!" Akintola's theme has remained constant, not affected by the impact that the huge differences between Nigeria and the UK have made on him. "I think the most important thing about my work is that I project certain things within the spirit of a man, and within my own spirit."