BambinoXArt

Olatubosun Owonifari (Bambino) is a Nigerian-born UX designer and artist based in Barcelona. His practice is built on a foundation of graphic design and digital media. He has always been captivated by Manga, drawn to its dynamic narratives, intricate characters, and bold stylistic choices. This passion stayed with him through college, where he studied graphic design and honed his skills in composition, typography, and user-centered aesthetics.

Over time, his fascination with visual storytelling and culture evolved into a creative practice that blends his design expertise with his love for Manga’s unique aesthetic. His early work resulted in striking Manga-inspired posters that merge his design expertise with his deep appreciation for the art form.

Olatubosun’s focus is now on large-scale, textural pixel art painting. His style is directly motivated by his deep connection to the high-impact, low-fidelity aesthetic of 80s and 90s pixel art, particularly in classic video games like Metroid and Castlevania.

Through his canvases, he seeks to poetically connect with the visceral nostalgia of his childhood. He meticulously translates these digital memories into physical statements. Using heavy-bodied paint in precise grids, he creates a striking texture where the simple pixel structure emerges as a tactile, three-dimensional object.

Olatubosun’s art challenges perceptions of legacy and authenticity, transforming ephemeral recollections into enduring, highly crafted contemporary paintings.

Pixel Dreams, 2025. 100 x 100cm Acrylic on Canvas

Pixel dreams is the first in a series o f works, inspired by pixelated video games and Lego toys from my childhood and late teens. The way a little brick or pixel coupled with other little bricks or pixels could turn into anything you imagine.

There's an obvious irony in taking every single grid as a pixel and painting them
individually to create a single painting that is inspired by old technology and childhood
wonder although it was sheltered and naive, there was freedom in Bosun's childhood,
freedom from growing up, freedom from the politics of race and sex and religion, it was free from the pangs of history and the worry for the future, it was free from rhetoric, paranoia, shame and regret, it was free from anxiety and doubt.

I just want t o redeem my sense of awe and wonder. I want this painting to represent
something positive in m y life: the connection I made in school with my friends, the love we had for pixel art in games, the friendship we built even till now and the childlike
wonder of knowing that you just need t o create stuff that you like.

Hell is us, woe is me. 2026. 100x100cm Acrylic on Canvas

Hell I s Us, Woe Is Me is basically a depiction o f my anxiety. I was thinking about how it can feel like being trapped in a kind of cage, like something that traps us in this hell.

There are all these thoughts, but one always sticks out. It does not go away. It lingers in
your head, makes you feel stressed, and feeds this fear in your mind.

A t the end o f 2024, I was diagnosed with ADHD and an anxiety disorder. I do not often
talk about it directly, but this painting says something about that experience. It holds the feeling of being mentally trapped, of having thoughts that linger, and of carrying stress and fear that d o not easily leave. That was what I was trying to depict by painting this.

What sits in tension with that feeling is that the process itself was really fun. I enjoyed
painting it and coming up with it, even while working through something heavy. The
piece comes from that contrast: trying to give form to something that can feel invisible, persistent, and difficult to explain, while still allowing the act of painting to be open and expressive.

For colored boys, 2025 80 x 80cm Acrylic on Canvas

This painting comes from the loneliness of trying to speak about mental struggles as
African men. It reflects the quiet pressure I saw my father carry, something I only understand now as I get older. I lost a friend to suicide while painting it.

I f I die
with no wounds on my body
but a raging war in my mind,
did I die by my own hand?
Did I tie my own noose?
Or was I suffocated by everything I kept inside?
Was I poisoned b y the venom in my head?
I know words are powerful, o r so they say, so I'll say this:
I'll go when I can't bear the noise in my head
and the coldness in m y heart.
I'll go listening to Folklore.
Maybe then my fidgeting hands can catch a break.
I'll go after I have made 100 paintings.
Maybe by then I'll believe and accept my abilities.
I'll go when my dad is grey and bent and my mum is rocking in her chair,
so my parents won't get to mourn their child.
I'll go when I have been of service to the person I love.
I'll make sure she doesn't have to bear the pain of seeing me disappoint her.
I'll go neither as a hero nor a villain, but as a man of service to the people he loved.