11-year-old Nigerian conquers the world with hyper-realistic drawings

When you think about being represented in a painting, how do you imagine the art would turn out? Perfectly identical to you? A little difficult, isn't it? Well, an 11-year-old boy from Nigeria conquered the world by exposing his hyper-realistic drawings on an Instagram profile and would be capable of this type of reproduction.

Kareem Wallis was born in Lagos, the former capital of the country, and started drawing comics, cartoons and illustrations at the age of six. Two years later, he began to perfect his techniques at the Ayowole Academy of Art, which he still attends today. Sitting on the porch of a simple house in a poor neighborhood, he impresses the world using pencil, paper and pen.

In an interview given to BBC Africa, Waspa, as he was nicknamed, says he is inspired by the works of artists Michelangelo and Arinze Stanley Egbengwu. His incredible paintings are displayed on his Instagram profile, which already has over 67,000 followers. In it, the boy appears in videos and photos, starting or finishing one of his creations.

Among those that most call attention is “Daily Bread”, a painting made with charcoal on a pelican card. Kareem explains what he wanted to express in the painting. In an interview with the CGTN Africa channel, he stated that "the sweat in it symbolizes the hard fight and the spoon means food".

A channel journalist praised the boy, mentioning that his work resembles reality, in addition to giving attention and emphasis to details. Calling himself a “little artist”, Wallis is keen to stress that the term only refers to his size, not his dreams. He intends, one day, to exhibit his art in a large museum.