Photograph by Jamal Lloyd Davis
Tomilola Olumide is a Nigerian Artist, Writer and Researcher whose practice documents memory and identity through autobiographical work informed by present experiences and her formative years in Lagos, Nigeria.
Working interdisciplinarily, she explores her subjects through tactile engagement with materials and the activation of muscle memory, creating process-led works that span installation, sculpture, textiles, ceramics, metalwork, literature, performance, and painting. She uses materials as intimate extensions of self, including personal memorabilia, natural fibres, found objects, jesmonite and clay. Her recent material interests and explorations in glass and copper metal have deepened her research into ceramic and jewellery crafts, such as kiln-cast vitreous enamel work and silversmithing, evident in her project Ìnù mí dùn (2025).
Tomilola moves between play, remembrance and engagement with the intuitive and mundane, where experimentation with materials and objects becomes essential to expressing thoughts, memories, and experiences both lived and becoming. She’s drawn to the intimate connections materials hold, the solace of kinship they offer with both the familiar and the external. Through investigations of their origin, form, texture, sensuality and purpose, along with the muscle, visual, tactile, and ancestral memories they evoke, she’s guided not only by their physical qualities but also by the stories they carry and the resonance they hold for her.
Olumide received a Master’s degree in Contemporary Art Practice (CAP) from the Royal College of Art (RCA), London and a Bachelor's in Fine Art from the University of Southampton, Winchester School of Art. She was awarded the RCA Sir Frank Bowling Scholarship in 2024/25 and a Soho Global Fellowship.
Her recent projects span exhibitions, residencies, commissions, performances and publications, including Forms & Fable at Filet London, Poetics of Becoming at Royal College of Art, Ìnù mí dùn at RCA2025 Degree Show, I’m in Love with the Metaphysical by Something Different, Fit Notes by Ache Magazine, Radiant at Copeland Gallery, Chronicles of Respite, Communion at The New Art Gallery Walsall & Multistory, Wá wò ó, Spot VR Residency at Stryx Gallery and Pressure x Walk, (Algo|Afro) Futures at Vivid Projects.
Tomilola is the Founder of Èfùnsíkú, an African-centred interdisciplinary creative incubator aimed to support African creatives and those across the diaspora. She lives and works between Nigeria and the United Kingdom.
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