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Abdulsalam Abdul Adabara
Paper sculptor
- Based in
- Abuja FCT, Nigeria
- Planet Passport
- PB-ID-000034
- In the archive since
- In the archive since August 2026
A permanent record in Planet B — the Permanent Archive of Human Contribution. The passport above resolves to an independent verification page.
A mixed media artist working primarily with paper and acrylic paints
About
Who they are
I am a mixed media Nigerian artist working with paper, acrylic and symbols to make conceptual Art.
What inspires the work
For an artist, who creates his stories from “heads” made from empty tissue paper roll, I would say the inspiration comes from the fact that heads hold everything; memory, fear and hope. And the trash materials I work with make the invisible, visible.
Preserved for future generations
The stories that can be discussed out of beautiful art-pieces made from everyday trash around us.
Works (11)
Happy people
2026 · Mixed media
"Happy People" is a gathering of 42 sculpted tissue paper heads, each smiling, each resting on a black ground. The yellow speaks of light, energy, and life. Placed together, they become a community — different, but united by joy. The work asks us to pause and remember that happiness can be simple, shared, and multiplied.Read more
$400.00 · available
- Series
The good, the bad and the ugly
2021 · Mixed media · 107cm * 77cm
_“The face we show when we want to be chosen.”_ Green = growth, permission, calm. The center head is big, but the small heads around it watch — even goodness performs. *The Bad* - _Red Panel, 77 x 107cm_ _“The face we hide when we want to be forgiven.”_ Red = anger, warning, blood. Same heads, different color. Bad isn’t a stranger — it’s us when the light hits different. *The Ugly* - _Yellow Panel, 77 x 107cm_ _“The face we deny until it denies us back.”_ Yellow = caution, decay, daylight exposing cracks. The ugly isn’t separate. It’s just the good + bad with no filter. *How they work together:* Same composition x 3. Same trash heads x 3. Only the color and label change. That’s the whole point — you don’t become a new person when you switch from “good” to “ugly”. You just change rooms in the same house.Read more
$1,545.00 · available
- Series
Crowned by choice
2026 · Mixed media · 49.5cm * 41.7cm
A young king sits with a sword in his own hand. He has used it to sever his head — a head made from a discarded tissue paper roll. A golden crown rests above the empty space where his mind should be. This is not regicide by a rival. This is regicide by choice. The title refuses the excuse of fate. Power did not take his head. He gave it. The materials speak the same language as the act: the crown is gold, solid, permanent. The head is trash, hollow, used up. A hierarchy of value is carved into the work itself. The piece asks what a generation trades when it reaches for thrones too early. Status over substance. Title over thought. Appearance over self.Read more
$367.00 · available
- Series
The center bleeds
2025 · Mixed media · 29cm * 49cm
7 heads in a line. 6 black, 6 silent, 6 draining grey. 1 red, center, refusing. “The Center Bleeds” is the moment rage becomes visible. The red head does not drip — it cuts. A vertical slash of blood through the frame, dividing black from black. All heads are sculpted from empty tissue rolls. Hollow. Used. Disposable. The crowd drains down because it has given up. The center bleeds up and out because it hasn’t. This is not a martyr. This is an accusation. When you’re tired of matching six silent heads, you mark the wall with your color until the room divides. Rage is not grief here. It is the decision to stop marching.Read more
$367.00 · available
- Series
Hues of Status
2026 · Mixed media · 213cm * 53cm
*Hues of Status* He started with trash. Empty tissue cores, hollow and discarded, just like the voices he meant to carve. One by one he glued them to a canvas 7 feet tall, 5 feet wide — big enough that you can’t look away. When the heads were up, he brought the color. Not random color. Six zones. Six rules. Six classes. Orange for the ones who hustle in heat but never cool down. Red for the ones whose anger is too loud to ignore. Yellow for the ones who laugh anyway, bright and thin. Then the blues: deep blue for the weight they carry silently, sky blue for the ones still hoping, light blue for the ones the world barely notices. Stand back and you see it split in two. Fiery on one side — orange, red, yellow — burning, demanding space. Light and warm on the other — the blues — quieter, calmer, easier to overlook. But up close, all the heads are the same. Hollow. Weird. Carved from what gets used up and thrown away. The red faces scream first because that class has learned: if you don’t scream, no one hears you. Yet every head, from red to light blue, is empty inside. The title calls it _*Hues of Status_* . The canvas asks: did the color choose you, or did you choose the color? You walk the 7 feet of it and realize the installation isn’t about them. It’s a mirror. Which zone would your face be glued to?Read more
$2,900.00 · available
- Series
Which me today
2026 · Mixed media · 53cm * 66cm
_“Which Me Today?”_ is made entirely from discarded tissue paper rolls. The headless figure stands before a shelf of faces — each roll a different color, each expression a different mood. It’s about the quiet moment we all face: choosing which version of ourselves to show the world today. The empty rolls remind us that identity isn’t fixed. We carry many selves, and we get to pick.Read more
$1,400.00 · available
- Series
Crowned among 120
2020 · Mixed media · 122cm * 122cm
*Artist Statement* 121 tissue-roll heads stand in a perfect 11 x 11 grid on a 122 x 122 cm canvas. 1:1 ratio. Each head is hollow, dimensional, unique. Each head holds its own color, its own background, its own world. “Crowned Among 120” is about honor within symmetry. The crown sits at exact center — row 6, column 6. Painted acrylic gold. Not real metal. Not inherited. Chosen, marked, elevated. One roll elevated while 120 remain. Material truth: Tissue rolls are democratic because everyone discards them. I crown one in gold to test value. The crowned head is still hollow. Still paper. Still trash. But now it carries light. Honor doesn’t fill the hollowness. It makes the hollowness visible. Material truth: Tissue rolls are democratic because everyone discards them. I crown one in gold to test value. The crowned head is still hollow. Still paper. Still trash. But now it carries light. Honor doesn’t fill the hollowness. It makes the hollowness visible.Read more
$2,560.00 · available
- Series
The “headless shopper
Mixed media · 102 by 77cm
We live in a supermarket of selves. On these shelves, faces are folded, labeled, and priced. Anger. Submission. Smiles for sale. We do not grow them — we select them. At the center stands the __Headless Shopper._ it has no face of its own, so it pushes a cart and fills it with others. Role after role. Mask after mask. It collects because it cannot be. This is the quiet tragedy of modern life: to become a cart, carrying identities you never asked for, until the weight replaces the self. I built this with empty tissue paper rolls because identity, when handled too much, becomes fragile. Paper tears. The self does too. _“The Headless Shopper”_ is not a joke about shopping. It is a warning. If you keep borrowing faces, one day you will look in the mirror and find the cart empty, and your head gone with it.Read more
$1,472.00
Center of attention
Mixed media · 179cm * 127cm
140 headless forms. 138 painted burnt umber, each with a single eye and no mouth. 2 painted green. The 138 do not speak. They do not act. They only watch. All of them are turned toward the two that broke the pattern. I made this piece from a place of discomfort. Arranging 138 witnesses felt like arranging a crowd I know too well — emptied, faceless, used up, and still looking. The burnt umber is the background: worn, repeated, familiar. The green is the break. It is difference made visible. The title does not decide what the stare means. It could be judgement. It could be envy. It could be longing for the color we do not have. Often it is all three at once. To stand apart is to be seen. To be seen, in a room of 138, is to become the center. The viewer who enters completes the count. You are #139. Your eye joins the others. The question is no longer “why are they looking?” The question is “what do you do now that you are looking too?”Read more
$3,307.00 · available
- Empty tissue paper rolls series
Silence between lines
2026 · Mixed media; paper, empty tissue paper rolls · 41cm * 38cm
_“The Silence Between Lines”_ is built from what we discard. The figure is formed from empty tissue paper rolls — hollow, used, emptied out. Hands press to the head. The mouth is open, but no sound escapes. Around it rises vertical lines of corrugated cardboard. They are not flat. They are 3D, ridged, and they crowd in. They read like packaging, like crates, like cages. The body is pressed between them, held by the same material that ships and stores us. In 2026, panic is not a cry. It is structure. It is being boxed, coded, and contained. The scream has been archived between the lines. The rolls are empty. The cardboard is industrial. What remains is the silence in the gap — where a voice should be, but isn’t.Read more
$367.00 · available
- Tissue paper art series
The “RED ELDER”
2026 · Discarded materials assemblage · 31cm * 46cm
_“Red Elder”_ is about visibility. In any council, one voice carries color. One body takes the mark. The red is not decoration. It is accusation. It is target. It is crown. The 4 black + white elders blend into the wall. They preserve tradition by disappearing into it. The red elder steps forward. Hollow, sculpted, disposable — yet impossible to ignore. The bodies beneath are coded with script. The heads are empty. The torsos speak. But the red head speaks louder, simply by being red. Material truth: I use tissue rolls because they are what we discard. I paint one red because that’s how systems work. One person gets marked. One person gets heard. One person gets blamed.Read more
$367.00 · available
- Upcycling
Exhibitions
- 2026- Nike Art Gallery, artist spotlight program