Ayanfe Olarinde

Ayanfe Olarinde (b. 1996, Nigeria) is a self-taught visual artist who lives and works in Lagos. Her unique artistic style draws heavily on photography and scribbling techniques to create intricately detailed and multi-layered images. 

 

Olarinde’s captivating work largely reflects her life experiences and serves as a tool to spark stimulating discussions about self-image and mental health. Olarinde's scribbling technique allows her to explore fluidity in form through jagged lines and to interrogate emotion, often drawing on “faults” in her personal, ongoing journey of acceptance. She delves into collective history, identity formation and social realities, interrogates the inefficiencies of government, and explores popular culture with a broad range of media: ink, acrylics, wire and found objects form evocative collages, drawings, paintings and sculptures. 

 

Her oeuvre showcases a strong influence of Yoruba culture, one of the most prominent and widely recognised cultures in Nigeria and West Africa. Yoruba culture and African folktales have strong morals and values that have helped the artist understand the world. 

 

Olarinde’s works preserve a cultural heritage gradually impacted by modernisation and globalisation. Transforming folktales into contemporary mixed media pieces using her signature bold and expressive colours and textures, her art promotes and offers unique insight and perspective into this rich and vibrant cultural fabric.