Nuclei

The artwork “Nuclei” is based on a digital performance relative to the nuclear rabble rattling of those with nuclear power, scaring humanity.  “Nuclei” addresses having a commanding power that all powers have to be treacherous or good.  All are capable of destructive power.  Power in the hands that create differs.  Why does one person’s power threaten to shake the world’s order and stability?  Do these powers recognize the power that everyone has in their hand?   What is red is not red.  What an object is, is not what it is.  What you see is not what it was.   Not all swallowed objects are digestible, some come solid.   “Nuclei” explores thought around the idea of what is power – the sun, for example.  As big as nuclei power is, it is as small as it is in the hands that create.  It is what power knows not that is what consumes power.  SUN RADIANT!

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Olabayo David Olaniyi combines his Western Art academic training with his traditional/contemporary Western African art upbringing and thought as a unique philosophically-imbued artist.  He creates art objects of power based on his philosophy “Life is a Performance” he birthed while an artist-in-resident at the University of Michigan from 2000-2001 based on his life and art experiences. He currently lives in balance of four realities – sacred, physical, old, and new – in the State of Iowa, USA and creates on his acreages of studios at Bayo Park & Galleries.

Olabayo first came to the United States in 1988 as a visiting artist.  Olabayo received his BFA from the College of Santa Fe in 1993 and his MA/MFA from the University of Iowa in 2002. He has been an artist-in-resident at the National Black Theatre in Harlem and at the University of Michigan.  He has exhibited, performed and conducted art workshops extensively across the nation, artfully transforming every community he encounters. His art objects are in many prestigious private and public collections, including President Obama, Larry Gagosian, the New Mexico Governor’s office, the Smithsonian Institute and the University of Iowa Museum of Art.

Olabayo David Olaniyi was born in 1970 in Oshogbo, Nigeria, a city renown worldwide for traditional and contemporary Yoruba arts and culture. His parents are two of Africa’s most prominent artists, Chief Prince Twin Seven Seven, the UNESCO 2005 “Artist for Peace,” and Chief Nike Davies Okundaye, renown 4th generation fiber-artist who currently owns and operates the largest art gallery in West Africa, Nike Art Centre located in Lagos, Nigeria. Growing up around a variety of traditionally-skilled artisans, craftspeople, and musicians, Olabayo absorbed and mastered a variety of artistic mediums including metal-smithing, woodcarving, beading, fiber art, weaving, masquerading, music, drumming and theater.

Olabayo’s Western art experience is vast – first, rooted in the Santa Fe Art scene, incorporating the colors/culture of New Mexico to industrial bronze casting of the Pajaro Valley, Watsonville, California.  Immersed in the cultural arts of Harlem, NY, Olabayo learned under the tutelage of the late, revered Dr. Barbara Ann Teer. Calmness and roughage of the US Virgin Island’s blue seas also shaped his presence in the United States.  He has driven across the United States as the first “self-employed black artist” awarded child custody in the State of Iowa, giving him a unique perspective of life and art, and utilizing his artistic talents as a transformative tool to make the world a greater place for his children and all children. Olabayo studies and emphasizes the role objects play in daily performances relative to time and space. His in-depth understanding and unrivaled mastery of material births museum-quality art objects and collectibles employing a dynamic set of talents applicable to all facets of life.