Woga Woga

If humans stand in a structure of bone and skin flesh as fabric, what are we? This series of work are birthed and created from the sculptural form, “skin” and structure of “A Sinful Fall” form featured in Bayo Park & Galleries’ 2025 annual event, “A Sinful Fall – F – SaG -C.”  The sculptural form  “A Sinful Fall,” standing and fallen, are both object structures of their own, representing the sinfulness of power that stands and falls. The series of digital art capture the essence and beauty of the structural form, “A Sinful Fall.”  There are beauty in all things; these works of art are the beauties birthed from ‘A Sinful Fall” form designed to open up the dialogue of objects relating to space, elegance of lines, warming minds and spaces. 

Each work is original, digitally created after our 2025 annual show. For a limited time, this series is currently available as a single-edition original work, limited editions prints, acquired in combinations with other works from this series, or commissioned as an original painting for private, corporate, or public collections.  Please click on image to view details or contact us for more information.

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.