Dotun Popoola is a Nigerian-born sculptor who turns society’s trash into visual magic. At just nine, he was scrapping milk tins and toothpaste boxes; now he’s crafting monumental metal beasts that tower over us and steal our breath. Raised in Lagos in 1981, he polished his passion at Auchi Polytechnic and Obafemi Awolowo Uni. After shining at Auchi Polytechnic with a top painting and general arts diploma, Dotun went on to earn a bachelor’s and master’s in Fine and Applied Arts from Obafemi Awolowo University. In 2015, he went global, selling his car to study welding in South Dakota under the mentorship at John Lopez’s studio. This fusion of formal art training with hands-on metalwork birthed his signature “hybrid metal sculpting” style.

What makes Popoola epic isn’t just his skills, it’s his storytelling. He welds scrap motorcycle tanks, bolts, pipes, and car parts into vibrant lions, eagles, and human heads. The vibrancy pops through color, because he hand-selects, sanitises and repaints each piece before welding them into masterpieces. Each piece echoes environmental decay and the resilience of Black identity.

My fave? “Irinkemi Asake,” a 12-foot-tall sculpted Black woman adorned with 4,000 miniature metal butterflies, celebrating Black women’s beauty and tenacity, now at Alabama’s Legacy Museum. His solo shows, like the 13-piece Metala exhibition in Lagos, are visual feasts pulling from Yoruba mythology and his family’s blacksmith lineage. Pieces like Sango (the thunder god) and Eyo (Lagos masquerade) blend cultural memory and metal magic.

His bio reads like a hustle manifesto: over 30 group shows, solo exhibitions worldwide, including ART X Lagos, Qatar, Gujarat, Turkey, Dubai Expo 2020, and even a seventh solo show at Baku ahead of COP29, spotlighting climate change. More than a sculptor, he’s an activist. He runs the Scrap Art Museum in Osun, mentoring hundreds and training recyclers to upcycle metal and stabilize incomes.

His major exhibitions, like Reclaimed Beauty showcased at the Heydar Aliyev Centre in Azerbaijan ahead of COP29, explicitly focus on environmental awareness. Popoola uses his art as a platform to ignite conversations around climate change and ecological care. Pieces like Dafidi The Recycler even self-portrait the artist as a waste warrior, celebrating the act of reclamation itself. Each sculpture isn’t just a masterpiece, it’s proof that sustainability can be breathtaking. His work proves environmentalism can be bold, colorful, and personal, and that true impact doesn’t come from recycling alone, but from redefining what resources are.

Popoola’s art isn’t just metal, it’s conversation. It tackles waste, infrastructure decay, global warming, Black resilience, and gender pride, all welded into forms bristling with texture, colour, and story. He’s been featured in over 100 outlets—from NY Times to CNN, BBC, Reuters, Al Jazeera—showing that scrap metal isn’t just refuse, it’s a canvas for cultural reflection, environmental purpose, and raw creative power. His impact isn’t confined to galleries. He’s an environmental and social activist who fights infrastructural decay.

In a world drowning in waste, Dotun Popoola builds monuments. His message? Trash is just unmade art. And with enough vision, sweat, and weld, it can become treasure. From Lagos lanes to global fame, he reminds us: beauty, meaning, and history can be forged, one weld at a time.