Oluseye Ogunlesi (b. 1986, London, UK) is a Nigerian Canadian artist.
Using “diasporic debris” — a term he coined to describe the artifacts and found objects collected on his trans-Atlantic travels— he explores Black being across themes. These transformational objects are recast into sculpture, installation, performance, and photography to invoke personal migratory narratives within a broader exploration of Black Diasporic identity, popular culture, and African spiritual traditions. Oluseye embraces Blackness as divine, fluid, and unfixed; unbound by time, space, and geographies, blending the ancestral with the contemporary and the physical with the spiritual. He has a Bachelor of Commerce from McGill University and a Master of Science in Entrepreneurship from Bayes Business School, London, UK. He has exhibited internationally at the Museum of the African Diaspora, San Francisco; Southern Guild, Cape Town, and Albright-Knox, Buffalo; and in Canada at Daniel Faria Gallery; the Gardiner Museum; Agnes Etherington, Kingston; MOCA Toronto and the AGO. Oluseye’s first permanent public art commission will be installed in Toronto in 2026.
Photo: Josh Rille