Some Nigerian fabrics are difficult to look at without thinking about where they came from. An indigo adire cloth is not simply a piece of fabric. The patterns, dyeing process and symbols connect it to a Yoruba tradition that has been passed down through generations. Aso-oke carries its own history, with its distinctive woven textures and patterns tied to Yoruba dress and identity.

But traditions like these do not survive simply because they are beautiful. Someone has to learn them, practise them and teach them when the older generation is no longer there to do it. For more than four decades, that has been part of Chief Nike Davies-Okundaye’s work.

Born in 1951 in Ogidi-Ijumu, Kogi State, Nike grew up around traditional textile practices. Her great-grandmother introduced her to adire, weaving, dyeing and embroidery, giving her an early connection to skills that would later become the foundation of her career.

What began as something she learnt within her family eventually became much bigger than her own artistic career.

A tradition learnt by hand

Adire, which is strongly associated with Yoruba textile culture, is made using resist-dyeing techniques that create patterns on cloth. Indigo is one of its most recognisable features.

The Smithsonian describes adire as an indigo-dyed textile tradition involving wax-resist painting and stencilling. It also notes that adire production declined before experiencing renewed interest in the 1960s, when new patterns and uses began to emerge. That history matters because textile traditions can easily become something people admire without understanding how much knowledge goes into making them.

The patterns have to be learnt; materials have to be understood, and the hands have to know what to do.

Nike’s work has always been closely tied to that practical side of preservation. She not only created textile art for galleries. She taught the techniques, established spaces where people could practise them and created opportunities for traditional crafts to remain part of people’s working lives.

From learning the craft to teaching it

In 1983, Nike established the Nike Centre for Art and Culture in Osogbo. The centre became part of a wider effort to teach young people different forms of art and keep traditional creative practices in circulation.

Over time, her work expanded beyond one centre. In 1996, she established an Aso-Oke weaving centre in Ogidi-Ijumu, which the Google Arts & Culture account says employs more than 200 women. She later established an Art and Culture Research Centre in Abuja in 2002.

Her approach is important because preservation, in her case, has never meant putting traditional textiles behind glass and telling people to admire them from a distance. It has meant keeping people involved in making them.

That distinction changes everything. A craft that is only displayed can become a museum object. A craft that is still being taught, made, worn and sold remains part of everyday culture.

When cloth becomes a way to tell stories

Nike’s own work also shows how traditional textile language can move beyond clothing.

She has worked across batik, textiles, painting and mixed media, often bringing textile-inspired patterns and Nigerian cultural references into contemporary art. The Smithsonian describes her work as bringing contemporary perspectives to the communicative power of Nigeria’s traditional textile arts. Her paintings have also explored women, community and social issues.

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In one Smithsonian-held work, Liberal Women Protest March, women stand together in rows, surrounded by patterns inspired by textile traditions. The work considers the role of women in society and the ways Yoruba women have historically responded to crises in their communities.

So, even when Nike moved from fabric to canvas, the textile tradition did not disappear. It followed her.

The gallery became part of the legacy

The Nike Art Gallery in Lagos is perhaps the most visible part of the world she has built around art and culture. The gallery’s own account describes the institution as growing from Nike’s original desire to preserve Nigerian textile traditions and empower women. It now has locations in Lagos, Abuja, Osogbo, the United States and at Olumo Rock in Abeokuta.

But the significance of the gallery is not only in the number of artworks inside it, it also represents the idea that Nigerian art does not have to be separated from Nigerian life.

Traditional techniques can sit beside contemporary paintings. Old patterns can inspire new works. A skill learnt from a grandmother can become part of an international art career.

That is one of the reasons Nike’s stories extends beyond the usual story of an artist becoming successful. Her career has been about building a place for other people to continue creating too.

A legacy that is still being passed on

Perhaps the most interesting part of Nike Davies-Okundaye’s story is that it is not finished. Her influence can be seen in the artists and craftspeople she has trained, in the women who have worked with traditional textiles, and in the younger generation encountering these techniques in galleries, workshops and cultural spaces.

In 2026, Tate featured Nike in a film exploring her work, her Lagos gallery and the revival of traditional art practices. The film also introduced her daughter, Aina, whose work continues the tradition of Yoruba storytelling through textiles.

That is what cultural preservation can look like when it is alive. It is not always a monument or an old building.

Sometimes, it is a woman sitting with a piece of cloth, remembering what she was taught, creating something new from it and showing someone else how to do the same.

Nike Davies-Okundaye’s legacy is therefore not only in the artworks attached to her name. It is in the knowledge that continues to move from one pair of hands to another.

And perhaps that is how a tradition survives: not by remaining unchanged, but by continuing to be taught, practised and given another life.

Meiza Nigeria