Gelede Melody - Weight of Inheritance series, 2026

Orioye Bukola  

Orioye Bukola, born in 1993 in Osogbo, Orioye is a native of Ekiti State—a graduate of Chemistry from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. Trained by Mr. Tope Fatumbi of Topfat Art Gallery; Adamasingba, Ibadan 2019. He is inspired by societal issues and life demands, beauty, culture, and African Spirituality – focusing more on the female gender as a conduit to all else. His philosophy is about simplicity and determination without harm none.

Orioye's mind quest has progressed to infused questionings and suppositions in his canvases beyond mere rhetorical aesthetics; (as the trendy atmosphere now seems mostly to suggest). His works speak in metaphors that flow between the past, the present, and the postulation of the future. He probes into relics to unearth anchored reasoning that shares semblances with contemporary happenings.

His stylistic sense is inventive of punkish style piles of hair reminiscent of the 80s and discotheques, parted with sharp oblique angles which are reflections of the hard chiseled surfaces of the Yoruba effigies he introduces into his works, seasoned with a strong sense of fashion.

Orioye is concerned with African spirituality and how it interfaces with the people's identity, memories, worship, and total well-being. This adaptation of the past to interface with the present and postulate a futuristic nuance is evident in his warm leathered-clad supersonic subjects whose demeanor echoes the Star Trek, UFO, and intergalactic Adour of postmodern Hollywood cinematic periods.

This pendulum of interactions between the past, the present, and the futuristic postulations, defines Orioye's works and lends them a certain direction. The combinations create inquisitiveness for explorations that permeate the borrowed eras, espousing bygone traits of exhumed investigative nuances, memories, identities, and spirituality of bygone cultural epochs. It will be exhilarating to calmly observe the growth of Orioye Bukola's sojourn in the interpretations of his curious and investigative narratively placed overtures.