Following a couple of awards and exhibitions across Africa and the west, foremost Nigerian printmaker, and culturally-oriented visual artist, Tosin Oyeniyi, and a couple of his linocuts projects, has been highlighted as one of featured works for the 2023 U.S. Archival exhibition.
Enlisted with his works are that of Kevin Boatright, Symphony Swan, Solomon Moneyang and four other Nigerians, namely Akintunde John, Adeoti Azeez, Joseph SegunFunmi, and Osoba Omoayo.
Notable amongst his exhibited linocut works is the Abiyamo illustration, which shows the essence and heritage of an African mother.
Speaking on his participation at the exhibition, he expressed excitement over the featuring of his craft alongside the works of other African artists, “being the only Linocut prints making artist in Nigeria presently”.
Oyeniyi, the Oyo State-born Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Fine Arts graduate, who hinted on ‘Abiyamo’ and other works being featured at the ARCHIVAL, disclosed that “My works intentionally mirrors and reflects the unpalatable plights of the poor, the predicaments of a typical African woman, the quagmire of the out-of-school children and the vexation of the homeless.
“On the other side, I also display the contentment of an average African family with hope-filled glowing eyeballs, adorned in her rich agrarian environment. My art, which subverts conventional ideas in styles and final looks, particularly investigates the blacks’ persistent yearnings for peaceful co-existence, drawing particular attention to the prosperity that is obtainable only within a serene environment, without being political.”
While addressing the importance attached to exhibition, he said, “The show brings about narrating, exhibiting, projecting and exporting the rich, enormous and vastly undermined African culture and her customs to the rest of the world. While unravelling the blacks under-appreciated pasts, I, in my works, also narrated her unscripted socio-economic stages of developments unapologetically.”
He, therefore called on government at all levels to give necessary support to visual artists in the country by recognising them and adding their crafts to national projects.
Tosin Oyeniyi, with his outstanding linocut prints, is billed for a 2024 residency programme in the US.
