Mobolaji Ayeni (b. 1992) is a Nigerian-American visual artist, designer, and writer based in Detroit. His work explores memory, identity, and the strength of bonds between people. Drawing from family photos, human history and cultural objects, he creates visual narratives that reflect on intimate and collective experiences.
He is a 2025 Emerging Artist Fellowship recipient, powered by Gilbert Family Foundation. As a 2025 Emerging Artist Fellow, Ayeni was chosen for his artistic excellence and strong exhibition concept through an open call process and selected by a small professional arts jury.
Read our interview below with Mobolaji Ayeni about his process and process behind the series of works presented in CARAVAN, his debut exhibition on view through May 2nd.
Various paintings in CARAVAN retain visible areas of underpainting. How do you decide to leave sections unresolved, and what role they play in the final piece?
MA: I am largely self-taught. I’ve taken painting classes since high school, however a lot of what I’ve done has been a journey of discovery. In that process, what I have learned about the things that I’m trying to work on is restraint.
It’s doing just enough to communicate what you need to. With ‘Oluwatomi I’, doing that exactly made sense. Both because I do the background first, but I wanted to emphasize even him as a subject, to see whether that’s relevant. I feel like there’s times I can get caught up on details. By using restraint, this makes me feel it doesn’t add anything.
When developing a tonal block in, or monochromatic under-painting, in paintings -such as OLUWATOMI I or ADEOLUWA l- what do you primarily consider at that stage?
MA: There’s something about that color, purple, kind of civic signifies the connections in my family, but also what we might associate with, purple, like royalty or spirituality or many other things associated the color. And I also want to gesture towards a plane of reality that’s different from ours. It’s like layers lined up on glass and you’re taking like one piece out of it and looking at it.
Why is there a focus on the undertones of umber and magenta?
MA: In the painting of ‘OLUWATOMI I’, he was playing music, there’s a way in which he was engaging with a different plane here. There was a warmth about the moment, a thing that was more vibrant about just that moment.
Your palette often leans toward earth tones. What draws you to these colors and how do they shape the emotional atmosphere of your work?
MA: I’ve always just loved wood and the natural world, camping and being in nature. There’s aspects of the way that the soil is in Nigeria, it’s like a very similar clay color.
In your paintings, MARKET DREAM and MICHAEL (BAPTISM), facial expressions and details are minimized or omitted. How do you approach conveying emotion and narrative without relying on facial expression?
MA: There’s a way in which the paintings where there’s a bunch of people there’s not a lot of detail in face. I’m relying on what is it that they’re all doing together to communicate something.
How do you know when a painting is complete? Is there a specific moment or feeling?
MA: Sometimes I can see it, an internal resonance, and sometimes I didn’t know to just stop, but I liked it. I would just point earlier on that I liked it. There’s several more details and information, but I wasn’t producing. It was marginal and I not necessary to add.
Oil painting can be technically and mentally demanding. What challenges have you encountered in your practice and pivotal moments that shifted your approach?
MA: My practice over time has required to find more and more space to paint. I began to work on various paintings instead of just a piece of the time, and learned to allow things to dry, and allow that physical constraints to propel me to do something else, right? Because I simply can’t add anymore right now.
It’s not gonna, ‘hey, that’s why I need to move on. I won’t have to be back next week,’ you know? And then that time is when you think about things because it’s things take longer. You’re thinking about them.
Does using a minimalist approach allow you to work within time constraints and how much you produce?
MA: There are pieces I hoped to include in CARAVAN that I just simply couldn’t, because didn’t get them finished in time, or wasn’t able to photograph them. I try to pay attention to how much time something needs, but I think it probably also coincides with my ambitions as an artist. In preparing for the exhibit, I worked to put things out and trust in my own standard of when something is ‘ready.’ I’m still trying to work on restraint.
I aim to create a layered body of work that honors ancestral histories, contemporary diasporic identity and the human person.
The conceptual framework builds on the metaphor of a caravan as both physical and symbolic: a moving community, a vehicle of exchange, and a vessel of memory.” – Mobolaji Ayeni
CARAVAN explores the migration of people, ideas, and cultures from pre-colonial West Africa to modern North America. Through layered, story-driven paintings, it honors ancestral histories and diasporic identities. Using the caravan as metaphor—movement, exchange, memory—it weaves interconnected narratives of continuity and transformation across time and generations.
Artist Talk on April 30th, 7PM. ON VIEW THROUGH MAY 2.
Browse Artwork by Mobolaji Ayeni.
