Bristol · Visual Artist
Dahlia
Dahlia's Canvas — 2024
Dark elegance.
Creativity.
No destination.
View Works
Dahlia
About
Nigerian-born.
Bristol-based.
Uncontained.

Dahlia is a visual artist currently building a body of work rooted in abstract expression. Her work is emotionally driven — each piece a release of feelings she hasn't yet found the courage to speak aloud. She describes her practice as the ability to "create and birth without mothering" — bringing something into the world without the weight of nurturing it into something palatable for others.

Her palette is instinctive and colour-dependent, shifting between dark urban tension and warm, chaotic life. She works across surfaces such as canvas, cardboard, everyday objects and khadi paper, layering emotion rather than technique — stopping when it feels right rather than when it looks finished. A practice she calls "Is it finished" or simply "No Destination."

She holds a Masters in Renewable Energy, came to the UK and built herself from the ground up — carrying the complexity of someone who feels everything deeply but expresses it most freely through paint.

Dark elegance. Creativity. No destination.
© 2024 Dahlia's Canvas. All rights reserved.Bristol, UK
Portfolio
Selected Works
A selection of mixed-media paintings on traditional surfaces, exploring Dahlia's dialogue between constraint and impulse. Each work marks a moment of translating inner states into surface reality — offered as bespoke, archival-quality collector's pieces.
Gallery Works
Burst of Desire
Burst of Desire
Acrylic on Canvas · 2023 · 36 × 30 in.
In private collection — Lagos
Not Tamed
Not Tamed
Mixed Media · 2024 · 36 × 27 in.
Available — enquire
Precious Disguise
Precious Disguise
Acrylic on Canvas · 2023 · 30 × 30 in.
In private collection — Lagos
Desert Bloom
Desert Bloom
Acrylic on Canvas · 2022 · 16 × 12 in.
Available — enquire
The Mystical Kiss
The Mystical Kiss
Acrylic on Canvas · 2022 · 12 × 36 in.
In private collection — Lagos
Naturban
Naturban
Mixed Media · 2024
Available — enquire
Grandmother
Grandmother
Acrylic on Canvas · 2024 · 24 × 29 in.
Available — enquire
Whirl
Whirl
Mixed Media on A3 Khadi Paper · 2023
Available — enquire
April 2026 Collection
April 2026 Collection
Mixed Media · 9 works · April 2026
Available — enquire
Is This West?
Is This West?
Acrylic on Khadi Paper · May 2026 · A3
Not for sale
Wearable Editions
Painted directly onto garments and accessories, Dahlia's wearable editions blur fashion and art. Each piece is lived with — carried through real-world spaces, transforming everyday bodies into walking canvases.
Canvas as handbag, Lagos 2023
Lagos, 2023
Canvas carried as handbag — curated intervention during rush hour
Performance Works
Our Land Festival, Lagos
Our Land Festival · Lagos
Painting live, beside the performers
Featured live at Lagos' Our Land Festival, a cultural event curated by Nigerian Alté pioneer BOJ. This performance captures raw, unfiltered motion as Dahlia painted live beside performers — blurring spectacle and ritual. Each canvas exists as a relic of the moment, a singular artifact of live transformation.
Selected Appearances
Our Land Festival — Lagos
Live painting performance curated by Nigerian Alté pioneer BOJ. Painting live beside performers — each canvas a relic of the moment.
Cymru Cwiar — Cardiff
Group Exhibition · Cardiff Umbrella Art Collective, Capitol Centre · August 2024. Cardiff Umbrella is a queer-run, artist-led community arts space in the heart of Cardiff, Wales.
More work on Instagram @dahliaas_canvas
© 2024 Dahlia's Canvas. All rights reserved.Bristol, UK
144
In Development · London Premiere
Hours: The Mirror Cage
Scroll
144 is my becoming. It is to finally be, see, feel; to stand inside the truth I have been circling from the outside. It is the decision to excavate what I was too afraid to find. 144 is where I birth — not just art, but versions of myself I could not have imagined into existence from the outside. It is the incubator of my discovery. The limbo between spirit and matter, ether and the tangible, vibration and colour. It is the space that does not satisfy unfed hunger by feeding it, but by becoming the hunger itself. It is consciousness that births without amnesia. It is the remembering of who the fuck I am.
Mirror Cage concept
Mirror Cage installation
About the Project

Dahlia's next large-scale performance installation will debut in London: a six-day, 144-hour endurance ritual inside a mirrored enclosure, merging live painting and audience interaction. As part of the project's private prologue, the artist undertakes a filmed body-ritual process — including a plant-based cleanse and the ceremonial Grail-Kundalini tattoo — that sets the stage for the transformation documented in the feature-length film.

The work echoes the concepts explored in Not Tamed (Circa 2025 submission) — a visceral invocation of sacred autonomy. A meditation on awakening, isolation and the performance of being witnessed without truly being known.

Full project deck available upon request. For collaboration or exhibition enquiries: dahlia.canvas@gmail.com

© 2024 Dahlia's Canvas. All rights reserved.Bristol, UK
Words
Writing
On practice, process, and what lives beneath the surface.
On 144
The Remembering
144 is my becoming. It is to finally be, see, feel; to stand inside the truth I have been circling from the outside. It is the decision to excavate what I was too afraid to find. 144 is where I birth — not just art, but versions of myself I could not have imagined into existence from the outside. It is the incubator of my discovery. The limbo between spirit and matter, ether and the tangible, vibration and colour. It is the space that does not satisfy unfed hunger by feeding it, but by becoming the hunger itself. It is consciousness that births without amnesia. It is the remembering of who the fuck I am.
Artist Statement
On This Practice

This portfolio is a living record of a practice built on presence, risk and unfiltered feeling. Each work is made through intuition and lived experience — not decoration, but evidence of transformation. Created for collectors, institutions and collaborators who understand that radical authenticity is the rarest material of all.

Dahlia is currently developing 144 Hours — The Mirror Cage, a large-scale endurance performance installation premiering in London.

© 2024 Dahlia's Canvas. All rights reserved.Bristol, UK
Get in touch
Open to collaboration,
commission, or
cultural partnership.

For inquiries, proposals or cultural partnership — reach out directly. Full project deck available upon request.