Osione the Artist
Born in Nigeria’s Benin Kingdom, Osione spent the early years of his childhood immersed in creativity. His mother taught and managed a primary school, baked, made homemade mince and ice cream, and tended a garden with aubergines and a guava tree. His dad, an avid writer and former man of theater, worked in the agriculture ministry and introduced his kids to rabbit rearing. Among other things, the family at different points made their own soy milk and brooms from palm fronds.
Early on, it was clear to Osione that anyone could do anything—that he himself could do and become anything. Today, Osione is a multidisciplinary designer and artist whose interest in culture has led him to work around the world on policy design, branding and marketing, art exhibition and installation, art and design curation, music making, in addition to co-founding THIS IS US. Osione’s work is driven by the belief that we are free to live life on our own terms, especially when we share those terms boldly with others.
Often filled with nude imagery with sexual overtones, Osione’s work typically consists of stream-of-consciousness drawings and paintings that simply capture his feelings. The results are colorful, sometimes vibrant, sometimes dark pieces with no rhyme or reason, but evoking intense emotion. Ironically, the intensity of his work is restrained by confident lines, light touches of color, and occasional outbursts in the tiny frames of his sketchbook or on unexpected surfaces like discarded cardboard and plastic film. Whatever materials Osione finds readily available are fair game in his creative process.
Introduced to computers at an early age, Osione’s work also manifests in the form of graphic designs and digital drawings, and at other times in edited audio recordings, essay writing, songwriting, and collage films. With each medium, there’s a singular, nonsensical attempt to move quickly and often indelicately to capture life as it’s being lived, in a way that inspires audiences to keep life going. A self-proclaimed man of leisure, Osione’s philosophy is simple: “If I can do it, you can do it too. So let’s do it together.”
As part of our "Grow Wild, Grow Free" campaign, we have curated nine of Osione’s miniature drawings in a body of work titled “The Freedom” and are making them available for a limited time for customers to shop.
Discover the work here.
To learn more about Osione and his work, visit www.osione.com.
