Komi Olafimihan is a visual artist, poet, and architectural designer who is best known for his ability to represent, both visually and poetically, the complexities of the world and generation he finds himself within. In recent years, Komi’s art has been shaped by a cultural and artistic movement known as Afrofuturism, which explores African and African diasporic cultures in intersection with technology.
Through the lens of Afrofuturism, Komi has been able to transmit his sense of pride in the African cultures from which his perspectives emerge, while reflecting his interest in using artistry to reconnect Black people to a shared sense of history, resilience, and strength. In Komi’s most recent work, these ideas are most obviously transmitted through “Chikis”—a conceptual tribe who have the ability to change colour, emulate culture, and exist above the superficial differentiators of the average human. These metaphorical figures of African consciousness give Komi the ability to depict and comment upon the history, present, and future of cultures arising from Africa and its global diaspora.
Komi Olaf is also an architectural designer who earned his Master of Architecture degree from Carleton University in 2009. His academic research focused on the limits and uses of improvisation in architecture through a case study of the “Makoko” fishing community; a floating city in Lagos, Nigeria. The principles of improvisation, assemblage, and collage are still potent sources of creativity and invention for Komi Olaf, the influence of which can be seen and felt equally in his painting, poetry, and design work.
He manages Studio-laf and works in Toronto, Ontario.
The Alkebulan Mixtape Cover by Komi Olaf
