The artists wearing a gold halo crown, brown textured top, and jewelry, holding hands near face.

Bio

GRAPHY

Data Oruwari, also known as 'The Ancestors' Scribe,' is a Nigerian-born, Virginia-based visionary artist whose work channels divine intelligence and ancestral wisdom.

Working primarily in pen & ink, and gold leaf, her iconographic style, marked by meticulous detail and symbolic depth, explores Afro-spiritual cosmology and the interconnectedness of the spiritual and material realms.

Her art serves as a decolonizing force, reclaiming and restoring spiritual identities fractured by colonial erasure, and inviting contemplation on our collective existence.

Through contemporary hieroglyphs and powerful symbolism, Oruwari seeks to inspire healing, awaken consciousness, and connect viewers with the soul’s yearning for truth, healing and identity.

Artist

Statement

Our belief systems are an invisible force that shape our identity. They give us an understanding of who we are and why we are here. So my work focuses on exploring afro-indigenous concepts on spirituality; in relation to my personal experiences as an African woman born into a post-colonial environment, and that of the African diaspora today.

My work aims to decolonize and reclaim a spiritual identity that’s been damaged from centuries-long ‘demonization’ of afro-indigenous belief systems, by telling stories of how my ancestors understood the nature of our collective existence.

I use art as way to heal deep-seated collective wounds of my history, and to celebrate the vibrancy and relevance of the legacy of those that came before me.

“To create is to remember. To remember is to awaken.”