artist • collector • technologist

 

 

Olusanya Ojikutu is a Nigerian-born artist, collector and technologist currently based in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area, best known for his hard-hitting political cartoons during the brutal military dictatorship years in Nigeria. His tremendous creativity and his social and political commentary earned him a number of national media awards for being the best editorial cartoonist in Nigeria.

​​

Ojikutu, who is largely influenced by traditional African art, particularly traditional African sculptures and masks, primarily draws inspiration from his Yoruba cultural heritage juxtaposed with visual metaphors and allegory of social, cultural, and political issues as a continuum of his early cartooning oeuvre. He is currently exploring wide ranging themes based on Yoruba deities, mythology, and cosmic references from ancient Ile-Ife, including the allure, tension and complexities of his diaspora conversance.

 

Ojikutu, who has participated in a variety of art shows in Nigeria and the United States, recently added a voice of his cultural heritage to the truly solemn Middle Passage exhibit at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) in Washington D.C. He is also an avid collector of traditional and contemporary African art from the continent and its Diaspora.

​

Ojikutu holds a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts with First Class Honors from the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) in Ile-Ife, Nigeria, as well as a Master of Science degree in Cybersecurity Policy from the University of Maryland University College and Harvard VPAL certificate in Cybersecurity: Managing Risk in the Information Age. He has also attended the International Program in Art History at the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom.