Noni Olabisi’s generosity and provocative work embodied “the power of art to transform and make real our stories,” as one collaborator remembers.
For Debra J.T. Padilla, the then-executive director of SPARC who commissioned many of Olabisi’s murals, the artist held a “special place in [her] heart.” Padilla wrote on Instagram that Olabisi “taught [her] so much about standing by your convictions and truth. When we fought to make sure she could paint her ‘To Protect and Serve’ mural it was a triumphant moment for all of us who believed in the power of art to transform and make real our stories.
In a series of interviews with Isabel Rojas-Williams, a curator and former executive director of the Mural Conservancy of Los Angeles, Olabisi said she was first encouraged to make art while attending Horace Mann Junior High School, on South Saint Andrews Place. There, one of her teachers said: “‘Here, you take this big sheet of paper,’ and they would give everybody else the little sheet of paper,” Olabisi recalled. “They said, ‘You do what you want to do.