Temitayo Ogunbiyi

This installation by Temitayo Ogunbiyi is a response to a series of greeting cards created mainly in the 1970s and 80s by Dr. Bruce Onobrakpeya. Ogunbiyi is particularly interested in his allusions to hairstyles and femininity, printed as etchings in black ink on white paper. Here, Ogunbiyi seeks to recall these cards that were taken from artist’s home in February 2020, her first visit to his studio in Mushin and her encounters with Horns of Freedom, a series by Bruce Onobrakpeya that Ogunbiyi has lived with since her formative years.

In her new series, Ogunbiyi returns to printmaking for the first time in almost twenty years. She also looks at the communities formed in Onobrakpeya’s renowned Harmattan Workshop and Demas Nwoko’s New Culture Magazine, a publication from the 1970s in which Onobrakpeya’s work was frequently and prominently reproduced and discussed.

In honour of Onobrakpeya, an artist who continues to invent new techniques with curiosity, Ogunbiyi considers play as an integral part of printmaking, collaboration and reflection on the present. Presented in conversation with printmaking tools and materials, the works – either as physical objects or reproductions – make reference to Ogunbiyi’s interests, including botanical cultures and the movement of people and plants.