Sunday Olaniyi "Lemonade"

A multi-award-winning Sunday Olaniyi is a multimedia artist, designer, and art instructor residing in Scranton Pennsylvania United States. Grew up in the ancient city of Oshogbo Nigeria, He has been exploring various techniques and media such as bead mosaic painting, African traditional wood carvings, Aluminum relief, and textile designs, mastering both craftsmanship and creative expression in all his works. In his art, he investigates the relationship between space, color, and texture in realism forms as well as semi-abstracted human and animal forms.  

Sunday Olaniyi has participated in several group and solo exhibitions. 2025 keynote Speaker and teaching artist on Forms and Symbolisms in Traditional Yoruba Sculptures at Norfolk State University Virginia USA. In the year 2024, He was invited to demonstrate the Yoruba traditional wood carving at the Virginia Museum of Fine Art (VMFA). and in the year 2016， he was invited to give lectures on African art and culture at the University of Campinas in Sao Paulo, Brazil.  

The quality of his craft and the inheritance of his works are both meaningful and highly aesthetic. He creates drama in the decorative giving his works both depth and beauty, as he expresses his unique voice as a contemporary African artist.

Artist Statement

“Truth, Identity, and Inheritance
Through Ayékòótọ́ (The World Rejects the Truth), Lemonade, Yèyé Òge (Queen of Style), and Ọba-lọ́lá (Future King), I explore identity, truth, resilience, beauty, and cultural inheritance. Together, these works consider how personal and collective histories shape the ways we see ourselves and how we choose to be seen by the world.

My practice draws from Yoruba cultural memory while engaging contemporary experiences of identity and belonging. Through portraiture, intricate beadwork, pattern, color, and symbolic imagery, I transform the human figure into a space where ancestry and the present meet.

Ayékòótọ́ confronts the difficult relationship between truth and acceptance. Its central idea is that truth is not always concealed; sometimes it stands openly before us and is simply rejected. The work asks what it means to remain grounded in one's truth when society is unwilling to acknowledge it.

Lemonade shifts toward resilience and transformation. Inspired by the familiar idea of making lemonade from life's lemons, the work considers our ability to transform difficulty into possibility. Rather than allowing adversity to define us, we can reshape challenging experiences into sources of strength, beauty, and renewal.

Yèyé Òge (Queen of Style) celebrates feminine presence, confidence, elegance, and cultural pride. The figure becomes more than a portrait; she represents self-possession and the power of presenting oneself without apology. Beauty here is not merely decorative—it becomes an expression of dignity, agency, and identity.

Ọba-lọ́lá (Future King) looks toward inheritance and possibility. It considers the next generation as carriers of memory, responsibility, and cultural continuity. The idea of the “future king” is therefore not simply about royalty, but about becoming—about the values, histories, and responsibilities we pass forward.

Together, these works move between truth, resilience, self-expression, and legacy. They ask: What truths do we inherit? What do we do with adversity? How do we define ourselves beyond the expectations of others? And what parts of our identity will we carry into the future?

Through these portraits, I seek to create a visual conversation between Yoruba heritage and contemporary life—one in which identity is not static, but continually remembered, challenged, transformed, and passed on.” - Sunday Olaniyi.