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Adenrele Sonariwo

Adenrele is a Nigerian entrepreneur and award-winning curator, founder of Rele Art Gallery and Rele Art Foundation. She has curated and overseen several commercially and critically acclaimed high profile art exhibitions that challenge the boundaries of art, engaging innovative subjects and techniques. Adenrele is all about democratising arts and has led the movement to break art out of its ivory tower and make it accessible to young Nigerians, with Rele gallery exploring and partnering with practitioners in the fields of technology, community social causes & health.

Adenrele won The Future Awards for Arts and Culture in 2016. She has also been on the Power List of influencers in culture in 2016  and 2017. Also in 2017, she became the lead curator of the first-ever Nigerian pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennale. In March 2017, she was listed as one of the 100 Most Inspiring Women in Nigeria. She has spoken at TEDx events and has been listed by Vogue as one of the “Five Coolest Women in Lagos”. In 2018, she was selected as a member of the jury for the 13th edition of the Dakar Biennale. She was also the first person to curate an art exhibition at Aso Rock (The Presidency) Abuja. Rele has been featured in other global publications including the Financial Times, BBC, Guardian, LA Times, The Art Review, Forbes Africa. She has held exhibitions across Nigeria and in Los Angeles, New York, London.

Adenrele specialises in business accounting for creatives. She has been responsible for creating groundbreaking and much talked about programs including the Art Summit Nigeria, Her Story, Tech meets Art and Young Contemporaries. She advises various government agencies, financial institutions and law firms on culture and tourism including the Nigerian Minister of Communications and the Ogun State government.

She holds a BBA in accounting from Howard University, an MA in Multimedia Communications from the Academy of Art University and a certificate in Curating Contemporary Art Exhibitions from the University of the Arts London.