Tunji Adeniyi-Jones

About the work

This drawing is part of an ongoing series in which I am searching for expressive and vibrant ways to articulate figures in motion.

About the artist:

Born London 1992, Tunji Adeniyi-Jones lives and works in New York. He graduated from BFA at The Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford (2014); and MFA Painting and Printmaking at Yale School of Art (2017).

Tunji Adeniyi-Jones is a painter whose work is heavily steeped in West African aesthetics; his imagery is a dedication and a homage – a preservation of his Yoruban heritage that also questions idolatry from a distinctly diasporic perspective.

He is invested in presenting this history and personal reflection through an idiosyncratic and contemporized context as his stylized figures and floral adornments float in suspension through preternatural or ritualistic environments, replete with repeating patterns rendered in vibrant tones. Adeniyi-Jones’ androgynous lovers, masked deities, and regal animals dance across his foliated and seasonal spaces, singing to ceremony and mythology with reverie for the natural world.

Adeniyi-Jones’ work can be found in public collections including the Dallas Museum of Art and Pérez Art Museum, Miami.

Selected exhibitions include Young, Gifted, and Black: The Lumpkin-Boccuzzi Family Collection, touring exhibition (2020-2022); Forms of Life, Morán Morán, Los Angeles (2020); to dream a man, Clima, Milan (2020); The 100 Show, Loyal Gallery, Stockholm (2020); Open Call, KÖNIG, London (2020); Noah’s Ark, Nicelle Beauchene Gallery, New York (2020); The Barn Show 2019, Johannes Vogt Gallery, East Hampton (2019); A Place to Belong, Hunter Harrison, London  (2018); and LOST IN THE WORLD, Mulherin Gallery, New York (2017).

Awards and Residencies include Black Rock Residency, Dakar (2020); La Brea Studio Residency, The Cabin, Los Angeles (2018); and Forbes 30 Under 30 Artist of 2020.