Alli Olu (b. Lagos, Nigeria in 1994) is a mixed-media artist whose charcoal and acrylic works onpaper and canvas explore the possibilities of visual storytelling, introducing new narratives aboutyouth culture in Africa’s largest metropolis. Olu blends abstraction and figuration, withcharacters emerging from distorted grids to which they seem to be bound and, simultaneously,able to manipulate. They submerge their feet into the grid, tug at it, dance across it -emphasizing the interformativity of identity and context, of personhood and place. Olu is asinvested in formal considerations of line, color, and scale as he is with social inquiry. In a bustlingcity in constant motion, Olu stills a microcosm of its dynamism, intimacy between young friends -hopeful, free, open. The grid, alternatively foreground and background, invites viewers in towatch but stops them short of participation. Olu received a National Degree in General Art in2017 and a Higher National Diploma in Painting in 2019 from Yaba College of Technology.