Niyi Olagunju
Born 1981, Sagamu, Nigeria
Lives and works in Houston TX
Niyi Olagunju holds a BA Fine Arts (Hons) degree from the University of Oxford, and a MA in Fine Arts, with a specialisation in sculpture from Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, Texas. Before his degree at Oxford, Olagunju served with the British Army from 2002 through to 2006.
The artist primary focus has been global trade and its effects on his birth continent of Africa; a recent subset now investigating the global trade is classical African art and antiquities.
Work from Olagunju’s Baga Nimba series was shown as part of Get Up, Stand Up Now, a major exhibition celebrating the past 50 years of Black creativity in Britain and beyond, at the Somerset House, London. Another museum showing in 2019 was at the Vestfossen Kunstlabratorium, Oslo, Norway. Work from the Baga Nimba series was also included as part of the Royal Academy of Arts Summer exhibition in September 2021. Olagunju’s sculpture is represented in the permanent collection of the House of European History, Brussels, Belgium.