Layiwola works in a variety of media ranging from metalwork and pottery to textile and sculpture and addresses diverse thrust of the postcolonial African condition. She focuses on personal and communal histories, which centralize Benin as both an ancient kingdom and a contemporary city. In her teaching, writing, and art, there is continuous engagement with themes of artifact pillage, repatriation and restitution, history, memory, gender and the continually mutable processes of production. Her work moves from the emotive space of art pillage in Africa captured in previous exhibitions: Benin 1897.com: Art and the Restitution Question (2010), Whose Centenary ? (2014) and Return (2018) into a gentler engagement with cloth and its multiple significations. 

Her works can be found in the collection of Microsoft Lagos, Yemisi Shyllon Museum, Pan Atlantic University, Lagos and homes of private collectors such as JP and Ebun Clark and HRH, the Obi of Onitsha.

On the international level, Layiwola was elected President of the Art Council of the African Studies Association( ACASA) 2021-2022.  With this appointment, she becomes the first African female and first resident president of the Association. She is a recipient of the British Council Sub-Saharan Africa Arts Cultural Exchange grant, 2021. She also received the African Multiple Cluster of Excellence, University of Bayreuth Grant, 2020; Tyson Scholar at the Crystal Bridges Museum, Bentonville, Arkansas, USA (2019): Distinguished Professor and Visiting Scholar at the University of Arkansas (2019-2020) and received the Honourary 2020 Ambassador of Goodwill Award from the State of Arkansas. She was awarded the prestigious Terra Foundation grant for American Art in 2018; She is an Alumni of the CAA- Getty International program participating in 2013, 2018 and 2021 programmes in the US.  She was nominated to the US International Leadership Programme (IVLP) 2011. She partnered with the Bronx Museum of the Arts on the Hilary Clinton US State Department SmARTpower programme in 2012 which hosted American artist, Brett Cook in Lagos and Ibadan.  The outcome was a series of workshops culminating in the making of an Iconic mural in the University of Lagos, 2012; She won the US Lagos State Consulate Grant 2017 and the US Alumni Exchange Award 2018.  She was also awarded a Goethe Resident Artist grant, (KNW) in Dusseldorf in 2017 and African Multiple Cluster of Excellence Artist- in-residence, University of Bayreuth, Germany 2021-2022

She was spotlighted as a College Arts Association member (CAA) in 2021 and rated one of the top 10 women on top of Lagos Art Scene.

Layiwola holds membership of various associations; Art Powa Publishing Network (ARTPOWA) in South Africa; International Committee of Museums (ICOM); College Arts Association (CAA); Nigerian Field Society (NFS) Ibadan Branch and other organisations. She is a life member and serves on the Board of the Lagos Studies Association.

She has served as guest lecturer in several Universities/Institutions including,

Colgate University, 2021; Stanley Museum of Art, University of IOWA; 2021,  Vermont University, 2021; Rhodes Island School of Design (RISD), Providence, 2019; Millsaps College, Jackson, Mississippi, USA 2017; Tougalou College, Jackson, Mississippi 2017; University of Arkansas, 2017; The Art Institute of Chicago, USA, 2008; University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2008; University of Zurich, Switzerland, 2004.

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