Tayo Olayode
Tayo Olayode is one of Nigeria’s most exciting experimental artists who graduated from Ahmadu Bello University with a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Art in 1998 with a specialization in painting. Olayode’s oeuvre includes paintings, sculptures, tapestries and large scale sculptures in public spaces in Nigeria, utilizing diverse media including found objects such as rubber slippers, charcoal and metals. His fascination with unique textures and unusual applications led him to experiment and utilize complex techniques and styles. Olayode explores materials and methods, through an emphasis on line and color, with an aesthetic language that spans abstraction, realism and surrealism.
As a young artist he was privileged to have been mentored by leading African artists including Professors Abayomi Barber, Jerry Buahri, and Ablade Glover, and celebrated realist, Abiodun Olaku. Olayode’s work has been featured in yearly local and international auctions and exhibitions, and his pieces are in numerous important private and institutional collections. He has done numerous important commissions including the Eco tree at the Lagos state governor’s office in Alausa, created for the Lagos@50 project and the Mega pipe at CMS walkway CMS Marina. Olayode is a co-founder of the Iponri Art Studios, the President of the Watercolour League, and a member of the Society of Nigerian Artists (SNA).
Olayode has co-curated exhibitions in Nigeria, Ghana, and Kenya. He was the winner of the Terra Kultur/Ford Foundation art award for the Best Young Artist in Nigeria (2006) after which he spent three months in Ghana under the tutelage of Professor Ablade Glover. He also won the Arthouse Foundation Scholarship to take part in a residency at the acclaimed Vermont Studio Cultural Exchange Program in 2014. He has received numerous awards including being the recipient of the Association of Fine Art Students (AFAS) Leadership Award as AFAS President in 1997 - 1998. Olayode lives and works in Lagos.