Curatorial Statement (Written by Heather Anderson):

In this site-responsive artwork, Yomi Orimoloye conjures a garden-like landscape that expands the foyer and invites us to mindfully occupy this transitional space. As a kind of other-worldly portal, The Third Door prepares us to cross the threshold into the performance hall.

Transformation, a key theme in Orimoloye’s work, emerges through the childlike figure who embodies a spirit of curiosity and excitement akin to what audiences might feel upon encountering the performance hall’s Romanesque Byzantine architecture. The mural’s abstract forms evoke the hall’s soaring columns and extraordinary acoustics, while the sun cresting the horizon suggests boundless possibility.

Orimoloye works both digitally and on canvas, creating layered collage-like compositions that meld portraits and geometric shapes. His work reflects on selfhood as a process of storytelling and becoming. His art practice is influenced by his ongoing inquiry into identity, his Nigerian
heritage, and the diagrams, schematics and precision of his profession as an electrical engineer.

The Third Door highlights the vitality of gathering, and how spaces of community and the arts shape our sense of self.  Yomi Orimoloye is the inaugural artist at CUAG Centretown, which will annually feature a commissioned wall work by an artist in the Ottawa-Gatineau region.

Curator: Heather Anderson
Location/Site: Carleton Dominion-Chalmers Center | 355 Cooper Street, Ottawa, ON K2P 0G8 (Entrance 290 Lisgar Street)
Duration: May 27, 2025 - April 30, 2026
Installation: Optima Imaging
Installation Photos: Melanie Mathieu