Meet the Nigerian who is a doctor by day and an artist by night

Dr. Gbadamosi Adefemi FolaDavid is a Nigerian medical doctor whose profession has inspired him to become a visual artist and speed painter.

For his arts, FolaDavid said he finds inspiration from the patients he treats, especially those with skin conditions such as stretch marks and freckles.

“In the hospital, I mainly use my hand to take care of people, to heal them, treat them and make life a lot easier for them. And the same thing I do with my art,” he said.

By depicting these imperfections, he hopes to inspire others to feel more confident in their own skin and help boost their self-confidence.

He said: “I get really fascinated by common wrinkles – wrinkles that you see every day because it’s not as fresh as flawless skin. I love working with skin that has freckle, stretch marks, vitiligo, ichthyosis, different skin changes and disorder.”

For FolaDavid, the skin is a canvas to tell human stories. In less than five minutes, he is able to paint his subject on the spot and upside down. Fascinated by the human form, FolaDavid started creating art in medical school.

He is currently working on a campaign to help people, especially women feel more confident. “I want to be able to reach out to every single woman to be able to love themselves for who they are”.

According to him, because of the age of social media, everything we see now has to be perfect and it has caused a lot of women to be very depressed and have low self-esteem and lose confidence.

“I want to be able to rekindle that confidence in the women and tell them ‘you don’t have to edit your flaws, you need to be proud of who you are’, be proud of your skin and let that confidence flow from within,” he stated.

Learn more in this video: