<h2>Nike art gallery, Lagos State Nigeria</h2>
<p>Chief (Mrs.) Nike Monica Okundaye popularly known and called &ldquo;MAMA NIKE&rdquo; by her numerous fans, was born on the 23rd May 1951 at a very quiet and hilly village of Ogidi-Ijumu in Kogi State of Nigeria. She is the Owner/Curator of the Nike Art Galleries at Lagos, Osogbo, Ogidi-Ijumu and Abuja. She is also an accomplished professional artist, a painter, a textile artist, weaver, embroiderand an awards winner at many national and international art shows. Nike is a member of many nationa and international bodies including Society of Nigerian Artists, ASA of USA and Canada, ACASA, Society of Nigerian Women Artists, Member of Osun Support Grove, Board member of the National Heritage Council of Nigeria, Member of the Board of Trustee of Osun State Centre For Black Culture and International understanding, etc. She is also principally a social entrepreneur and a well know philanthropist championing the cause of the neglected Nigerian rural women suing art as a tool to accomplish these nobel missions.<br /><br />Nike is a multi-talented individual with a wide range of enduring fortitude. In her early life as a village girl, she was a stage dancer and later became an actress featuring as a lead actress in a local Yoruba film, &ldquo;Ayaba&rdquo;. In addition, she has also participated in many documentary films including &ldquo;KINDRED SPIRITS&rdquo; sponsored and produced by Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC and a CNN feature documentary film &ldquo;AFRICAN VOICES&rdquo;.<br /><br />Nike Center for Art and Culture in Osogbo offers free of charge trainings to all Nigerians in various forms of arts. The center was established in 1983, by Nike solely from her earnings as an artist and without governmental assistance. Nike opened this center with 20 young girls who were marching the streets in Osogbo aimlessly and who had no hopes for the future. In their tender age, Nike withdrew these girls from the streets and provided them with free food, free materials and free accommodation at her residence at Osogbo and taught them how to use their hands to earn decent livings through the art. So far, over 3000 young Nigerians have been trained in the center and who are now earning their decent livings through art. Many African countries now send their students to study textile art at the center.<br /><br />The Nike Center for Art and Culture, Osogbo now admits undergraduate students from many universities in Nigeria for their industrial training programs in textile design. This center also now admits students from all over Europe, Canada and the United States of America. International scholars and other researchers in traditional African art and culture also visit the center from time to time for their research works into Yoruba "Adire" fabric processing and African traditional dyeing methods.<br /><br />In 1996, Nike also established a textile (Aso-Oke) weaving center at Ogidi-Ijumu near Kabba in Kogi State for the women of the village, employing and empowering more than 200 women in the weaving center. In June 2002, Nike established an Art and Culture research center at Piwoyi village, FCT Abuja with an art gallery and a textile museum, the first of its kind in Nigeria which provides a functional platform for research into Nigerian traditional textile industry in the Federal Capital Territory area of Abuja. In furtherance of these noble endeavors, Nike is currently the managing director and founder of the following organizations in Nigeria; "Nike Art Productions Limited" which she incorporated in 1994, "Nike Art Gallery Limited" which she incorporated in 2007 and the "Nike Research Centre for Art and Culture Limited" which she incorporated in 2007. Also in 2007, Nike founded the "Nike Art and Culture Foundation" with some notable eminent Nigerians as trustees, with the main aims and objectives of fostering Nigerian cultural heritage.</p>