Season 7 continues with another Talk Art exclusive! Russell & Robert meet artist Jadé Fadojutimi for a special tour of 'Jesture', her recent London solo exhibition at Pippy Houldsworth Gallery. Fadojutimi created this remarkable new series of paintings during lockdown. Next year, she will participate in Liverpool Biennial 2021 as well solo exhibitions at Institute of Contemporary Art (Miami), The Hepworth (Wakefield) and Taka Ishii (Tokyo). 

The title of the exhibition, Jesture, touches on a sense of the absurd, responding to the disruption of daily rhythms arising from forced isolation during lockdown. Central to Fadojutimi’s practice is a repeated questioning of identity, its fluid nature and how the understanding of notions of pleasure, desire and choice are integral to a sense of self. Addressing the exchange between an individual and their environment, the vivid choices of colour and form derive from the associative qualities of the special items that capture her attention and the memories they invoke. 

Fadojutimi’s studio is filled with objects, drawings and writings that evoke nostalgic pleasure. Powerful memories, experienced whilst listening to film, animation and video game soundtracks, transport Fadojutimi to the first time she encountered them, eliciting a response that is experienced through intense colour. The synthesis of these various influences, through which Fadojutimi understands her sense of self, is transformed into large-scale gestural paintings charged with energy and emotion.

Described by Fadojutimi as environments, these complex compositions, neither wholly abstract nor figurative, are built up with layers of oil paint, interrupted by the more linear mark-making made possible by her recent adoption of oil pastels. The introduction of new materials into her painting has enabled the artist to think more broadly about palette, composition and depth, while translating the spontaneity of her drawing on to the canvas. 

Jadé Fadojutimi (b.1993) lives and works in London. She earned a BA from The Slade School of Fine Art, London in 2015 and an MA from the Royal College of Art, London in 2017. After Pippy Houldsworth Gallery took on representation of the artist and presented her first solo exhibition at Pippy Houldsworth Gallery in 2017-18, she had her first one-person institutional show at PEER UK, London in 2019. Acquisitions by Tate London; ICA Miami, and a promised gift to Dallas Museum of Art followed soon after. She had her first solo exhibition in Germany with Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne, in 2018 and will have her first solo exhibition in Japan with Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo, opening March 2021. Fadojutimi has been selected to participate in Liverpool Biennial 2021. Her first solo US museum exhibition will be presented at ICA Miami, opening in November 2021. She will also have a solo exhibition of new work at The Hepworth Wakefield in 2021.

Visit her website at: http://jadefadojutimi.com/ and Pippy Houldsworth Gallery: https://www.houldsworth.co.uk/. Follow Jade at Instagram: @JadeFadojutimi

For images of all artworks discussed in this episode visit @TalkArt. Talk Art theme music by Jack Northover @JackNorthoverMusic courtesy of HowlTown.com We've just joined Twitter too @TalkArt. If you've enjoyed this...

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