Nigerian artist, Alexander Peter Idoko is a pyrography artist but not as we have ever seen before, creating large-scale beautiful, life like work using a burner rather than a pyrography pen.

Alex started portrait drawings whilst at secondary school in Lagos and developed a deep passion for art as he grew older and his medium developed into pyrography where he uses a combination of a burner, sandpaper and a cutting technique to carve into the burnt wood with a razor blade, creating razor sharp, realistic portraits.

Self-taught in his techniques, he has an intense skill at being able to bring his ideas to life as realistic works of art. He feels a connection with his chosen medium; wood, saying it makes him 'collaborate creatively with nature'. This creates a further dimension to his art and his approach.

His aim is to bring to light the story of black people around the globe, touching on issues and challenges they experience and trying to promote a positive response even to the future generations. He wishes to give a voice to all black people who lack the power to speak openly publicly about issues that affect them and humanity. He wants to challenge historically controversial subjects and he does so effectively with his powerful images burnt into wood.

'I mostly adopt the past and contemporary African societies, because I feel there are more that are yet to be unraveled.'

Alex can be found on Instagram at alexpeter_idoko and on his website at www.alexpeterart.com

We definitely recommend that you check out his work for a truly new style of pyrography.