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MURAINA OYELAMI (Nigerian, b.1940) THREE TRADITIONAL RULERS 1981 Oil on board 89 x 119 cm. (35 x 46 3⁄4 in.) Signed and dated (lower right) $ 5,000-7,000 Born in 1940, Muraina Oyelami is a consummate Renaissance man, as well as a musician, stage actor and renowned painter. He was discovered in the mid-1960s at Mbari Mbayo, an experimental arts workshop program in Osogbo (Osun State, Nigeria). The Mbari Club received creative direction from German professor Ulli Beier, art instruction from English painter Georgina Beier, and patronage from Nigerian theater luminary Duro Ladipo and traditional ruler Oba Samuel Adenle, the Ataojo of Osogbo. The success of the workshops led to the creation of the Osogbo Arts Movement, whose founding members — Twins Seven Seven, Adebisi Fabunmi, Jimoh Buraimoh, Rufus Ogundele — thematically emphasised the quotidian and the festive in Osun cultural life, folktales and mythologies. As Oyelami explained in his 1982 essay on the movement, “at first our works looked rather similar, but with time each artist found his own medium and identity”. Oyelami devised a unique paint application using a palette knife and a roller to create works of sustained geometric eloquence. His works have been exhibited in the United States, Nigeria, England and Germany. In the artist’s own words, his works are "purely imaginative, or the imaginative plus recent happenings. Sometimes I am religious or moral and sometimes I am irreligious, but always I strive to let mood and action become one”. (SK)