Ibiyinka Alao Contact
Ibiyinka Alao's monumental painting Eternity stretched across a large interior wall.

Artist. Architect. Author. United Nations Arts Ambassador.

Ibiyinka Olufemi Alao

Luminous paintings, stories, and performances made to help people remember peace.

View the work Read My Fireflies

Born from West African memory and trained through architecture, Ibiyinka's work turns color into a public language for hope, joy, peace, and love.

Selected work

Paintings that carry a room.

Start with the pieces people remember: the monumental canvas, the firefly story, and the color worlds that travel through exhibitions, classrooms, books, and performances.

Ibiyinka Alao seated with bright paintings in the background.

From studio to stage

A painter who builds worlds, then invites people inside them.

Ibi's practice moves between canvas, public storytelling, workshops, books, animation, music, and museum programming. The thread is simple: art as a way to create peacemakers.

Invite Ibi to speak
Girls and a Greener Environment artwork by Ibiyinka Alao.
Girls and a Greener Environment UN competition-winning work noted across his biography.
Golden Time artwork with warm figures and vivid patterned color.
Golden Time Pattern, memory, and movement in full color.
Masquerades Are Coming artwork by Ibiyinka Alao.
Masquerades Are Coming Tradition, procession, and ceremony.
Orange of Ponyan artwork by Ibiyinka Alao.
Orange of Ponyan A village memory shaped through color.
A vivid Ibiyinka Alao artwork with figures, motion, and deep color.
Color as language Paintings built from rhythm, story, and silence.
Your Light artwork by Ibiyinka Alao.
Your Light A quiet invitation to look inward.

Eternity

A 100-foot canvas built for awe.

Eternity is described on Ibi's official site as a 100 ft x 12 ft painting on a single stretch of canvas. It should feel like a destination, not a footnote.

Open the Eternity detail page
Wide view of the large painting Eternity displayed across an interior.
One continuous canvas. A public-scale meditation on memory, falling, rising, and light.
Cover of My Fireflies: Memories of My Childhood by Ibiyinka Alao.

Book, song, film, and stage

My Fireflies turns childhood memory into a way of making peacemakers.

The fireflies story appears across Ibi's book, music, animation, workshops, and public talks. It is personal enough for children and expansive enough for museums, schools, and civic spaces.

Buy on Amazon Amazon author page

The public story

A public practice built from painting, science, and peace.

Across interviews and public profiles, Ibi's story keeps returning to one idea: art helps people talk about memory, grief, climate, faith, forgiveness, and joy when ordinary language is too small.

His path moves from architecture in Nigeria to a United Nations art competition, from childhood firefly memories to classrooms and museums, and from a 100-foot canvas to workshops where people are invited to tell their own stories.

01

Fireflies as a language

PBS and Bucknell frame the firefly story as a bridge between childhood memory, science, storytelling, and hope.

02

Peace made practical

Public profiles connect his color work with peacebuilding, cultural integration, and workshops for students, families, and civic groups.

03

Art for difficult rooms

News coverage of his correctional-center workshop shows the same practice entering places where forgiveness and community matter deeply.

Portrait of Ibiyinka Olufemi Alao.

Color becomes a public language for memory, hope, and repair.

Contact

Bring Ibi's work into the room.

For lectures, workshops, exhibitions, commissions, press, and collaborations, use the direct contact routes below.

Email ibiyinka@ibiyinka.com Call (570) 317-5779