One knows what “ethnocentrism” means when before some splendid paintings by a man named Oyelami, one catches oneself jotting a note to the effect that they show the “influence of Modigliani and Dubuffet”, realising with a start that, of course, it was Modigliani and Dubuffet who were influenced by Oyelami’s forebears.
Peter Schjeldahl
New York Times Jun 1971
Muraina Oyelami (b. 1940) is a visual artist and musical performer, Oyelami's paintings and works on paper depict Yoruba culture, joining traditional motifs with modernist abstraction and figuration. A key figure of the Osogbo art movement, he began attending the Mbari Mbayo workshops in Osogbo in 1964, later studying theatre at Obafemi Awolowo University, where he taught African music from 1976 to 1987 and worked as a museum curator. Oyelami’s visual output explores the myths and celebrations of Yoruba culture and the lives of the nation’s people, particularly women. His varied and substantial list of credits include the Otis Art Institute, Los Angeles; Staatlichen Kunsthalle, Berlin; the Smithsonian Museum of African Art, Washington DC the Studio Museum in Harlem and the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London.