By Moses Nosike

The Yoruba say, a river that forgets its source will dry up. But memory is returning. You see it in the gallery walls of Paris, in the sudden quiet that surrounds a painting rooted in cosmology.

You see it on red carpets, where Taraji P. Henson steps out in white and coral, invoking Ọṣun more than hauteur couture.

You hear it in the calm certainty of Michael B. Jordan while declaring himself a Babaláwo. These are not gestures or curiosities. They are signals of a shift.

Ifá is no longer hidden behind whispers, as it was forced to under the guise of westernized religion.

It is standing tall again, in fashion, in lm, in contemporary art, and in the language people now reach for when trying to name spirit, ancestry, and belonging. And there comes Orisaparada. A visionary painter whose work is deeply rooted in the spirituality of Ifá.

Born Abayomi Oguntade Sapara, he was raised in a home shaped by Yoruba philosophy and cultural tradition. Spirituality wasn’t separate from daily life, it was part of it. He studied at the University of Lagos, Nigeria, but his understanding of the world came just as much from listening to elders, observing rituals, and living within a system of inherited knowledge. His creations react that grounding. “I am not just painting Orishas, I am painting the cosmology that shaped the lives of my ancestors and can still guide us today”, Orisaparada said.

Orisaparada describes his practice as an Afro-Spiritual Aesthetics. It spans oil painting, sculpture, digital media, and mixed material works. What binds it all together is the metaphysical grounding. His paintings are direct transmissions to spirituality.

In ODU Eji Ogbe, he honours the first and highest Odù in Ifá, a symbol of balance and destiny. Oyeku Meji, on the other hand, reacts loss and transition.

His 2023 piece Life Drama is layered with the tension of existence. “I specialize in oil on canvas and abstract concepts,” he said.

“Painting, for me, is a spiritual process—one that captures the creator’s essence and speaks beyond words. Ifá is finding its way back into public imagination. In cities like London, New Orleans, Atlanta, Salvador, Toronto and more, people are turning toward systems that react where they come from”.

Orisaparada’s work meets this search without compromise. He draws directly from the Ifá corpus, not to simplify it, but to show it as it is. His paintings are built with intention, using texture, colour, and form to carry meaning that doesn’t rely on explanation.

The work isn’t just retrospective or nostalgic. It’s grounded in the past, present and future.

For him, Yoruba spirituality belongs in contemporary life as knowledge, as guidance and as a design.

Orisaparada creates work that speaks beyond cultural lines. While rooted in Yoruba philosophy and the Ifá tradition, his paintings are meant for a global audience, people searching for meaning, structure, and spiritual depth.

He sees no reason African systems of knowledge should be conned to specific communities or reduced to niche interest. “Every brushstroke is a verse from the Corpus,” he explained.

“Every symbol is a prayer.” His work is a deliberate intervention in how the world denes intellect and beauty. By placing Ifá in contemporary art spaces, he challenges the narrow boundaries of what is considered as art or philosophical thought.

Orisaparada’s upcoming exhibitions in Paris and Milan present a new series of paintings based on the Odù Ifá, the central texts of Yoruba divination.

Each work is tied to a specific Odù and constructed through deliberate choices in form, texture, and colour to react its meaning and metaphysical structure. The Paris exhibition focuses on the philosophical depth of the corpus, while the Milan showcase explores how Yoruba symbols can inform design, architecture, and spatial thinking. The exhibitions are part of his ongoing effort to present Ifá as a serious intellectual and artistic framework, not limited by geography or tradition.

His goal is to bring Yoruba knowledge into global conversations about art, spirituality, and systems of thought.