Since her graduation from London's Royal College of Art in 2017, Jadé Fadojutimi has garnered critical recognition for her large-scale, vibrant paintings that reflect her introspective engagement with identity. In 2020, Fadojutimi became the youngest artist to have her work collected by the Tate.
Read MoreFadojutimi studied in London, graduating with a BA from the Slade School of Fine Art in 2015 and an MFA from the Royal College of Art in 2017. Although the artist had little experience with art before her studies, as she revealed in her 2021 interview with Studio International, Fadojutimi had always been fascinated with colour.
Drawing from her immediate surroundings and personal interests, Jadé Fadojutimi creates abstract painting that are characterised by rhythmic marks and swathes of saturated colours.
Central to Fadojutimi's practice is identity, exploring the means of its construction through painting. The imagery she uses often draws from the artist's own life, from her love for Japanese anime and Korean drama to music, video games, and soft toys, that are rendered as abstracted colours and marks on canvas.
The dynamic gestures the artist uses may suggest recognisable forms, such as hints of a rectangular space in By the Window (2017), which reflects Fadojutimi's obsession with her window. Yet the dynamic marks in blue and red confound a smooth interpretation of the work, punctuating the canvas with translations of personal sentiments and memories into colour.
The studio has been a source of inspiration for the artist, who translated her habit of painting at night into Heliophobia (2017). Overlaid with darker lines and spots of orange, the dominantly grey canvas conjures up the glowing atmosphere of her night studio' as Rory Mitchell observed in Ocula Advisory in 2020.
Due to the Covid-19 induced lockdown, Fadojutimi was forced to work away from her studio, during which she produced paintings for her solo exhibition Jesture (2020) at London's Pippy Houldsworth Gallery. Working with the recently adopted oil pastels, alongside her customary paints, Fadojutimi experimented with building up layers of paint and bold lines to create such works as OB-SESS(H)-ION and THERE EXISTS A GLORIOUS WORLD. IT'S NAME? THE LAND OF SUSTAINABLE BURDENS (both 2020).
Jadé Fadojutimi has exhibited globally in both institutional and gallery exhibitions.
Her solo exhibition include Jadé Fadojutimi, Hepworth Wakefield, West Yorkshire, UK (2021); Jadé Fadojutimi: Yet, Another Pathetic Fallacy, ICA Miami (2021); Jesture, Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London (2020); The Numbing Vibrancy of Characters in Play, PEER UK, London (2019); She Squalls, Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne (2019); Heliophobia, Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London (2017); among others.
Select group exhibitions include Liverpool Biennial 2021 (2021); Mixing It Up: Painting Today, Hayward Gallery, London (2021); Walk Through British Art, Tate Britain, London (2021); Infinite Games, Capitain Petzel, Berlin (2020); TWO x TWO for AIDS and Art (for amfAR and the Dallas Museum of Art), Rachofsky Warehouse, Dallas, Texas (2018); Under the See, The Crypt Gallery, London (2017).
Jade Fadojutimi's website can be found here and her Instagram can be found here.
Sherry Paik | Ocula | 2021
