b. 1981
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 fair includes plenty of art closely associated with the African continent...The British-Nigerian Niyi Olagunju is the most hard-hitting, creating partially gilded remakes of traditional sub-Saharan sculptures to criticise the global trade in objects that often had sacred or ritual origins in Africa.
Work from Olagunju’s Baga Nimba series was shown as part of Get Up, Stand Up Now, at the Somerset House, London; the Vestfossen Kunstlabratorium, Oslo, Norway and Royal Academy of Arts Summer exhibition.
Olagunju’s sculpture is represented in the permanent collection of the House of European History, Brussels, Belgium.