Olaolu Slawn 'Running Lies' Print Available

Artist: Olaolu Slawn
Title: Running Lies
Medium: Giclee Print
Size: 70 x 70 cm
Edition: UNSURE
Prices: $550

 

Olaolu Slawn born Olaolu Akeredolu-Ale in Lagos, October 24th, 2000 is a British-Nigerian painter, designer and self-branded “scam-artist” who has sprinted from Nigeria’s fledgling skate scene to the front pages of Sotheby’s and Silverstone in under five years. He learnt visual mischief stacking shelves and shaping boards at Wafflesncream, Lagos’ first skate shop, then co-founded street collective Motherlan, earning an early cosign from Virgil Abloh. A 2018 move to London (and lockdown boredom) pushed him from graphic-design classes at Middlesex University to slapping bright, grotesque caricatures on any surface that couldn’t run away canvases, club walls, even fried bread at after-parties.

Working in furious, lo-fi layers of spray paint, household emulsion and oil stick, Slawn fuses Yoruba pattern logic with 90s cartoon violence, re-appropriating golliwog-era stereotypes into bug-eyed, balloon-lipped grotesques that bait debates on race, identity and bad taste. The punchy immediacy of the imagery plus stunts like “fight-club” exhibitions where punters brawled for paintings quickly drew fans from Skepta to A$AP Rocky.

Major institutions followed: in 2023 he became the youngest artist ever to redesign the BRIT Award statuette, then repeated the trick for the 2024 FA Cup trophy. Auction records escalated when Three Yoruba Brothers sold at Sotheby’s and history was made again in July 2025 when his graffiti wrap on Racing Bulls’ Formula 1 VCARB 02 became the first artwork to race at the British Grand Prix. Whether you call it neo-expressionism or trolling at scale, Slawn’s work insists art can be loud, profane and still painfully honest about the pigment of prejudice.