Boluwatife Oyediran

Biographie
Boluwatife Oyediran - Hold Me Here and There, 2025
Boluwatife Oyediran - Hold Me Here and There, 2025

BOLUWATIFE OYEDIRAN EST NÉ EN 1997 AU NIGERIA. IL VIT ET TRAVAILLE À RHODE ISLAND, AUX ÉTATS-UNIS.

 

Diplômé d’un master en peinture (Master of Fine Arts) de la Rhode Island School of Design, où il a reçu la bourse présidentielle (Presidential Fellowship), Boluwatife Oyediran est un artiste pluridisciplinaire dont la pratique combine la peinture, l’écriture et la photographie. Son travail reflète un engagement profond à explorer l’identité noire qu’il réimagine et réoriente dans les canons de l'histoire, de la religion et de l'art occidental. 

 

Ses récentes pistes de réflexion l’ont mené à développer le concept de “Inverted Blackness”. Dans ces portraits peints en négatif,  la peau de ses modèles – des personnes ayant quitté le continent africain pour s’installer aux États-Unis – apparaît ainsi bleue, entourée d’un halo lumineux. Ces images matérialisent une identité en mutation et capturent les changements que subit le corps lorsqu’il se trouve confronté à un environnement. Cette série a fait l’objet d’une exposition personnelle à la galerie AFIKARIS en 2024 sous le titre Inverted Blackness et a été accompagnée d'une publication. 

 

Boluwatife Oyediran a présenté deux autres expositions personnelles en galerie : Point of Correction à la galerie AFIKARIS à Paris en janvier 2022, et For Boiz Like Me Who've Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf à la 1957 Gallery à Accra à l’été 2022. Ses œuvres ont également été exposées au Musée des Beaux-Arts de Krems, en Autriche, dans le cadre de l’exposition The New African Portraiture, organisée par Ekow Eshun. Son travail a récemment intégré la collection du Mattatuck Museum (Connecticut, États-Unis).

Il prépare actuellement un master (MFA) en écriture à Stony Brook (Iowa, États-Unis), approfondissant ainsi son engagement avec les formes narratives et littéraires.

 

Deux de ses œuvres sont actuellement présentées à la Fondation Blachère en France, dans le cadre de l’exposition Afroblue, visible jusqu’en septembre 2026.


Télécharger le portfolio de l'artiste (PDF, opens in a new tab.)
Œuvres
  • Boluwatife Oyediran, David and Avery (Party Size), 2025
    David and Avery (Party Size), 2025
  • Boluwatife Oyediran. Painter. Contemporary African art. Contemporary figurative painting. Black identity. Black figures portraits. Nigerian artist. Inverted Blackness.Contemporary African art. Art Contemporain Africain
    Hell or High Water, 2023
  • Boluwatife Oyediran. Painter. Contemporary African art. Contemporary figurative painting. Black identity. Black figures portraits. Nigerian artist. Inverted Blackness.
    Simone & Lloyd (The Favorite One), 2025
  • Boluwatife Oyediran. Painter. Contemporary African art. Contemporary figurative painting. Black identity. Black figures portraits. Nigerian artist. Inverted Blackness.Contemporary African art. Art Contemporain Africain
    Simone’s Yellow Scarf, 2025
  • Boluwatife Oyediran. Painter. Contemporary African art. Contemporary figurative painting. Black identity. Black figures portraits. Nigerian artist. Negative process. Oil and Acrylic on canvas.
    The Transfiguration, 2023-24
  • Boluwatife Oyediran. Painter. Contemporary African art. Contemporary figurative painting. Black identity. Black figures portraits. Nigerian artist. Inverted Blackness.
    Dami, 2024
  • Boluwatife Oyediran. Painter. Contemporary African art. Contemporary figurative painting. Black identity. Black figures portraits. Nigerian artist. Inverted Blackness. Contemporary African art. Art Contemporain Africain
    Hold Me Here and There, 2025
  • Boluwatife Oyediran. Painter. Contemporary African art. Contemporary figurative painting. Black identity. Black figures portraits. Nigerian artist. Negative process.
    Joanna, 2024
  • Boluwatife Oyediran, Untitled (American Architecture I) - 2024
    Plants of America, 2023-24
  • Boluwatife Oyediran. Painter. Contemporary African art. Contemporary figurative painting. Black identity. Black figures portraits. Nigerian artist. Inverted Blackness.
    Dami and Obasi I, 2024
  • Boluwatife Oyediran. Painter. Contemporary African art. Contemporary figurative painting. Black identity. Black figures portraits. Nigerian artist. Negative process.
    My basement window (American Architecture I), 2024
  • Boluwatife Oyediran, Higher Goals (After Hammons), 2024
    Higher Goals (After Hammons), 2024
  • Boluwatife Oyediran, David on a couch II, 2024
    David on a couch II, 2024
  • Boluwatife Oyediran. Painter. Contemporary African art. Contemporary figurative painting. Nigerian artist. Negative process. Oil and Acrylic on canvas. Abstract Landscape.
    Untitled (Landscape I), 2024
  • Boluwatife Oyediran. Painter. Contemporary African art. Contemporary figurative painting. Black identity. Black figures portraits. Ghanaian artist. Inverted Blackness.
    David on a Couch, 2023-24
  • Boluwatife Oyediran, One of Y'all Folks Gon Betray Me, 2021
    One of Y'all Folks Gon Betray Me, 2021
  • Boluwatife Oyediran, And their Fingertips Were White with Grief, 2021
    And their Fingertips Were White with Grief, 2021
  • Boluwatife Oyediran, The African Pope, 2021
    The African Pope, 2021
  • Boluwatife Oyediran. Painter. Contemporary African art. Contemporary figurative painting. Black identity. Black figures portraits. Nigerian artist. Inverted Blackness. Historical painting revisited.
    Untitled (portrait of Queen Elizabeth II), 2021
  • Boluwatife Oyediran, Self Portrait As Napoleon, 2021
    Self Portrait As Napoleon, 2021
  • Boluwatife Oyediran, Lady with a Boll, 2021
    Lady with a Boll, 2021
  • Boluwatife Oyediran. Painter. Contemporary African art. Contemporary figurative painting. Black identity. Black figures portraits. Nigerian artist. Inverted Blackness. Historical Painting Revisited.
    Kemi, 2021
  • Boluwatife Oyediran, To Become a Man, 2021
    To Become a Man, 2021
  • Boluwatife Oyediran, Dreamscape, 2021
    Dreamscape, 2021
  • Boluwatife Oyediran, Moremi, 2021
    Moremi, 2021
Expositions
Foires
Presse
Catalogues
Interview

On the occasion of his solo show Inverted Blackness, on view at our gallery until 23 November 2024, artist Boluwatife Oyediran shared with us the story behind his project and his creative vision in a a special interview.


HOW DID YOUR ARTISTIC JOURNEY BEGIN, AND WHEN DID YOU REALIZE YOU WANTED TO BECOME AN ARTIST?

 

I think I’ve been an artist for most of my life, since when I was a child. Everybody has that story of them making stick drawings while they were very young, before they got better at drawing, and then moved on to something else. But, professionally, I became an artist during the COVID-19 pandemic. It was then I could say that I discovered what it is that artists do. And since then, I’ve been on a journey to finding my style and voice as a visual artist. 

 

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR ARTISTIC STYLE AND HOW HAS YOUR CREATIVE PROCESS EVOLVED?

 

Currently, I make figurative paintings, mostly. But I write short stories on the side; I dabble in fiction. During my MFA program at RISD [Rhode Island School of Design] I tried to incorporate some of my short fictions into my paintings, which led to works like The Transfiguration (2023-24) which is part of my latest exhibition Inverted Blackness.

 

My creative process has evolved over these last few years partly because I’m still discovering myself as an artist. I think I have the potential to do more than I’m doing, and the more I discover myself, the more I evolve. For instance, in my next series I have plans to make some landscape paintings, in connection to my experience as an African immigrant living in America. So, I’ve been studying a lot of Monet and Van Gogh. I don’t believe there’s one medium to say something, so at times I’m looking for another medium to say what I’m saying in my paintings or writings. As Lynette Yiadom-Boakye famously said: “I write the things I cannot paint and paint the things I cannot write.”


READ THE FULL INTERVIEW