Tunde Owolabi

Multidisciplinary Artist

Tunde Owolabi is a Nigerian multidisciplinary artist whose practice explores culture, identity, memory and the human experience through painting, photography, sculpture and textiles.

Born in Lagos in 1978, Owolabi’s work is rooted in observation. He is drawn to the people, places, materials and encounters that surround him, particularly those that invite a closer look. Through sustained looking and material experimentation, he seeks to uncover the stories, emotion and meaning embedded within what we encounter.

His practice moves freely between mediums, allowing each idea to find its own language. Photography, painting, sculpture and textiles become ways of examining memory, cultural inheritance, identity and the relationship between the individual and the world they inhabit.

Research is central to his process. His investigations often begin with a subject, material, place or encounter and evolve through observation, experimentation and making. This approach allows his work to remain open to discovery, rather than being confined to a single medium, subject or visual language.

His engagement with Aso-Oke and Yoruba textile traditions emerged from this way of working, leading to an extended exploration of pattern, craftsmanship, cultural memory and contemporary identity. This research later led to the creation of Ethnik Afrika, a contemporary design practice rooted in African textile traditions.

Across his evolving practice, Owolabi is interested in the space between the personal and the collective, the inherited and the contemporary, the ordinary and the significant. His work is an ongoing exploration of how we see, remember and make meaning of the world around us.

For Owolabi, art begins with paying attention.

The familiar, looked at again.

Owolabi lives and works in Lagos, Nigeria.