Hopper I (series)

created out of found shedded grasshopper legs.

Hopper (series) addresses Father and Child relative to space and time imagining if the child could visit the father’s life experiences.

Hopper (series) connects Olabayo’s upbringing with bringing up his five children, most especially his last born, in rural Iowa.  Like a teleport where one travels through the shed legs of a grasshopper back in time, Olabayo used to fly and hunt grasshoppers, using grasshoppers to hunt birds, even frying collected swarms of grasshoppers to eat.  As an artist, Olabayo transported back to his village of Ogidi, Nigeria to days where mountains cast shades on the village in the valley against a rising and setting sun.  Farm Life.  Herbs.  Springs and Falls of water – only to be reminded with the alertness of fear that a little child possesses through the legs of Mr. Grasshopper.  “I am in Libertyville, addressed as Batavia, near Fairfield, in the State of Iowa.”  These works illustrate the commonality that humanity shares in thought through time via shed grasshopper legs – a revelation portal. 

Each print is signed, numbered, and dated.

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.