I’m telling a story about our culture, people and land

During the lockdown period of the pandemic in 2020, self-taught artist and architect Olubukola Bolarinde found herself reflecting on her artistic expressions. For years, the artist has nurtured her arts for passion which she evinced at a younger age. At one point, she dared to showcase her work at the Nike Art Gallery. The intention then was to evaluate the public’s perception of her art. The feedback was mostly favourable and by 2018, she established Yellow Dot Limited, a leading creative curation/production company. Bolarinde’s goal was to bridge the gap in the creative industry where many are lost in the pool of talents. Through her outfit, artists and other creatives found an avenue to showcase their talents. That same year, she produced the critically acclaimed film ‘Onidiri’.

Due to her insatiable appetite for art pieces — she collected artworks from Ghana, the UK, the USA, Nigeria and anywhere else her feet touched — Bolarinde began curating for other artists. However, she never abandoned her dream to give the world an exclusive peek into her creativity. After all, it was through her art that her career in architecture was launched. She was admitted into the Welsh School of Architecture at Cardiff University, Wales where she obtained a graduate degree based solely on her art portfolio. She proceeded to obtain her masters in Environmental Design and Engineering at Bartlett School of Architecture in University College, London (UCL).

“I came back to Nigeria to start in-practice as an architect with a firm called James Cubitt Architects in Lagos for about four years,” she said on a recent morning in her office at Wing Towers in…