Tunji Adeniyi-Jones, Frolicking Youth (2021). Oil on canvas 198.1 x 198.1 cm | 78 x 78 in. © the artist. Courtesy White Cube.
Undulating, sensuous bodies rendered in vivid colour fill the canvases of Yale MFA graduate Tunji Adeniyi-Jones.
Since graduating four years ago, Adeniyi-Jones has gone from strength to strength. Following White Cube's announcement earlier this year that they were taking on the artist, Phillips' 20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale last month saw the sale of his 2019 work Pattern Makers make a new auction record for the artist, selling for just over £300,000—over six times its pre-sale estimate.
On 19 November, White Cube opened their first exhibition of Adeniyi-Jones' work. Featuring paintings that call to mind West African sculptural traditions and the idealised figurative nude of Renaissance masterpieces, Adeniyi-Jones presents a distinctly West African take on modernism.
