Details of Bolaji Ogunwo (Nigerian, born 1978)

There is a certain luminosity that emanates from Bolaji Ogunwo’s works as they reveal a delicately rich application of heavy palette. Ogunwo, who has a BA in Fine Art from the University of Benin and currently a Ph.D. research student and a painting lecturer in the Department of Creative Arts, University of Lagos, where he also obtained an MA (Hons), talked of his art as ‘’finding expression in impressionism’’.  Five years after graduation, from 2006-2010, paintings churned out by Ogunwo, reveals a significant shift in their thematic preoccupation. Despite the fact that its subject matter is not new, it espouses a representational project in the realm of chronicle. Many of which were his oeuvre that re-captures series of Maroko mangrove swamps, log houses and cubicles re-enforced by zinc sheeting and cardboards, found objects from cannibalized automobiles, which sometimes makes his compositions a blurred and clustered images of scavengers’ heaven. But this was before 2006.  

However, Ogunwo still makes occasional return to a range of those themes. His strong interest on the diverse cultures within the geography of Nigerian has not only inspired works based on the fervour of contemporary traditional Yoruba festive mode. It cuts across the spheres of royal equestrian displays in the northern part of Nigerian and cultural orientation among the people of other regions as well.