Pelumi Ayeni

Pelumi Ayeni, MFA is a freelance artist, muralist, and instructor born and raised in Lagos, Nigeria. After immigrating to Brooklyn as a child, she currently resides with her husband in Jersey City, NJ. Pelumi received a Bachelors of Fine Arts from Roger Williams University in Rhode Island in 2016, and an MFA in Painting from Hunter College/CUNY in 2017. She has traveled back to Nigeria from her adopted home of New York to help teach art to young teens while painting murals in her free time. Her recent artwork focuses on historical and traditional subjects involving African culture, as well as her Nigerian-American background.

In addition to her work as an artist, Pelumi brings extensive experience in  hospitality management to her role as Lead Project Manager of Thrive Collective. After joining Thrive as a project manager in 2022, she was promoted less than a year later to supervise and support all project managers and artists to elevate Thrive’s mission within communities and schools.