Trinity 2 (series)

The TRINITY (series) are based on the design of a monumental sculptural installation currently in progress on the grounds of Bayo Park & Galleries.

Bayo Park & Galleries is designing, constructing, and building a unique, sweeping, large-scale outdoor gallery wall/sculptural installation on our 10-acre sculpture park in rural Iowa for art enthusiasts to have an expanded artistic experience unlike any other.

Bayo Park & Galleries presents “Trinity – A Towering Welcoming Wall” – permanently installed on our 10-acre sculpture park in Batavia, IA. Sweeping over 20 feet across and under a sculptured roof, the sculpted gallery wall installation will fit into its natural landscape, designed as a multi-purpose, multi-media exhibition wall to show large scale artworks/projections. Trinity fits between trees, interacting with natural lines and negative/positive spaces. Using contemporaneous elements, the work is organic relative to nature, yet modern today in form.

Trinity is an equilateral triangular form based on father/mother, son/daughter, and the holy spirit/ghost.  It is a wall that is not a wall, but an object sculpture, thus artistically redefining “gallery wall” as a sculptural object relative to space, not as a background for art but object art itself.

Trinity embodies our creative philosophy that “Life is a Performance.” It is designed to transformative-ly entertain the presence of an audience in 4 realities – old, new, sacred, physical. Trinity is in view day/night, yet differs to sight. It is a magical expression examining how we choose to see, reason, and understand relative to one’s known experience. 

The installation design is 24 ft x 24 ft. Installation is site specific.

This digital artwork series is a part of the “Trinity – A Towering Welcoming Wall” design process.  Prints are 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.