Symbols That Speak: The hidden language of African heritage on canvas

Art has always been a way to speak when words aren’t enough. Growing up in Nigeria’s Middle Belt, I didn’t find art only in galleries; it was everywhere. It was in the vibrant fabrics my family wore, carved wooden doors, festival wall patterns, and the hand-thrown clay pots that sat on every hearth, used to cook, store water, and serve food at family gatherings.

These weren’t just decorations, they were a visual language, recording history, expressing values, and passing down stories without ever writing a word.

I’ve loved drawing since childhood, but I started painting in 2019. As a self-taught artist, I don’t follow a formal curriculum, I follow the visual traditions I grew up with and the environment that shaped me.

Artists like La Lou Senbanjo showed me how African visual language can meet the contemporary world, giving me confidence to build a style that respects tradition while speaking to audiences across borders. Now based in Derby, UK, I carry those same symbols onto every canvas.

When people look at my work, they see striking patterns, but what they’re really seeing is a vocabulary. Every shape, line, and hue carries meaning rooted in West and Central African cultures.

Geometric patterns, straight lines, angles, repeating grids echo designs on handwoven textiles and traditional pottery. Order and symmetry represent harmony, balance, and structure in community life. They remind us we are part of something bigger, a network of people who rely on one another, share resources, and build together.

Circular forms appear again and again because they represent wholeness. The circle has no beginning and no end it speaks of the cycle of life, the continuity of family, and the connection between ancestors and those yet to be born. It also mirrors the clay pot the vessel that holds what sustains us, just as our communities and heritage hold us.

Flowing, wave-like lines suggest movement and connection the flow of rivers, the movement of people across lands and oceans, the exchange of ideas that never stay still. They also represent the bond between us and our ancestors how their influence flows through us even when far from home.

Colour is part of the language too. Deep reds evoke the earth’s warmth, the strength of our people, and family bonds. Gold and ochre speak of the land’s richness and the value of our heritage. Even in monochrome, stripping away colour to focus on form and pattern, the message remains: our heritage is visible in every line we draw.

The clay pot an ordinary, everyday object has become one of my most powerful symbols, and the inspiration behind the exhibition Claypots: Food, Body and Memory. It holds the food that nourishes the body, but also memory: the taste of shared meals, the smell of stew on a fire, the sound of voices gathered around it. Passed down through generations, mended when cracked, returning to the earth when broken the pot is a metaphor for who we are. Shaped by our history, filled with the experiences of those who came before us, and carrying that forward to the next generation.

For me, these symbols are never just about looking back. They keep a language alive that is often overlooked in a globalised world. African heritage is not something that belongs only in the past or in museums it is living, evolving, and something we create. Exhibiting across the UK London, Derby, Nottingham, Bradford, York I’ve seen how these symbols connect across borders. People may not know each pattern’s history, but they recognise universal ideas: community, care, ancestry, and home.

My dream is to one day open a gallery dedicated to telling this heritage’s full story through artworks, but also through the stories behind the symbols and the people who kept these traditions alive. Every time I pick up a brush, I continue a conversation that started long before I was born. And every time someone stops to look, that conversation continues. The symbols speak all we have to do is listen.

Samuel Tino-Emu Philip is a self-taught visual artist born and raised in Nigeria’s Middle Belt, now based in Derby, United Kingdom. He began drawing since childhood and turned to painting in 2019, developing a style shaped by his heritage, environment, and artists such as Laolu Senbanjo. His work uses African-inspired symbols, patterns, and colour to explore themes of identity, culture, ancestry, and memory.

Samuel has exhibited across the UK in Nigeria, London, Nottingham, Bradford, York, and Derby. His practice celebrates the richness of Nigerian traditions while bridging cultural boundaries, and he hopes one day to open a gallery that preserves and shares the stories of his heritage with broader audiences.

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