CULTURETECHLENSOscar Joyo
VERIFIED evidence grade — build store (JSON graph)
Combined Graph record U-07522 · provenance: build store (JSON graph), record CTL-E-6336.
Oscar Joyo is a Malawian-born, Chicago-based visual artist — painter, illustrator, digital artist and muralist — whose work mixes Afrofuturism and Afrosurrealism. The University of Illinois Center for Advanced Study hosted him as a GAM Visiting Artist, with a lecture on February 26, 2026, and he created a mural for the Champaign County African American Heritage Trail; his work has been shown at Chicago galleries including Vertical Gallery. He was named to WVON's 40 Under 40 Game Changers Class of 2026.
Answer summary · this record in brief, from its own record text
Oscar Joyo is a Malawian-born, Chicago-based visual artist — painter, illustrator, digital artist and muralist — whose work mixes Afrofuturism and Afrosurrealism. The University of Illinois Center for Advanced Study hosted him as a GAM Visiting Artist, with a lecture on February 26, 2026, and he created a mural for the Champaign County African American Heritage Trail; his work has been shown at Chicago galleries including Vertical Gallery.
Notes
Birth-year data appears in artist sources and is deliberately NOT carried in this record, per the pass's no-dates-of-birth rule for this class. Photo HELD: no Commons/LOC file located 2026-10-21.
Relationships
- WVON 40 Under 40 Game Changers — related to
Named to the WVON 40 Under 40 Game Changers Class of 2026 as Visual Artist, Independent (Oscar Joyo).
Sources
- WVON 40 Under 40 Game Changers, 'The Class of 2026,' 40gamechangers.com/gamechangers (accessed 2026-10-21): lists Oscar Joyo as Visual Artist, Independent (Oscar Joyo), among the 43 honorees named and pictured under the Class of 2026 heading. (primary source · build store)
- University of Illinois Center for Advanced Study (accessed 2026-10-21): Oscar Joyo, Malawian-born Chicago-based visual artist working in Afrofuturism and Afrosurrealism; GAM Visiting Artist with a February 26, 2026 lecture; mural for the Champaign County African American Heritage Trail. (primary source · build store)
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Record CTL-E-6336 · Combined Graph record U-07522 · CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph · 2 sources · 1 mapped relationship.
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Researched and maintained by the CultureTechLens research program · CultureTechLens Combined Graph, Release 2026-11-04. Corrections are public: the corrections log.
Cite this record
Chicago: CultureTechLens. “Oscar Joyo (CTL-E-6336).” CultureTechLens Combined Graph. Chicago, IL: CultureTechLens, 2026. https://culturetechlens.com/graph/entities/ctl-e-6336/
APA: CultureTechLens. (2026). Oscar Joyo (CTL-E-6336) [Entity record]. CultureTechLens Combined Graph. https://culturetechlens.com/graph/entities/ctl-e-6336/
MLA: CultureTechLens. “Oscar Joyo (CTL-E-6336).” CultureTechLens Combined Graph, 2026, https://culturetechlens.com/graph/entities/ctl-e-6336/
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