Joy Labinjo

Tiwani Contemporary now represents Joy Labinjo and is pleased to announce Recollections, her forthcoming debut solo exhibition at the gallery.

Joy Labinjo’s large-scale paintings depict intimate, contemporary scenes of family life: a group of people casually lying down on a sofa and chatting after a family gathering, a child and his grand-mother posing together in front of the camera, or stolen moments before the official wedding portrait. Her work expands on her British-Nigerian heritage and explores the relationship between belonging, identity and culture.

For her current body of work, she used family photographs and found images as a starting point for her paintings. Piecing the images together according to vibrant colours, patterns and poses, she rearranged the photographs into collages, which in turn inspired the compositions of the paintings in this exhibition. Having taken ownership of her archive through its documentation during preadolescence and subsequent depiction later through her work, Labinjo highlights a highly distinctive process of self-exploration to locate her own narrative.

Joy Labinjo was born in 1994 in Dagenham, UK and is currently based in London, UK. In 2017, Labinjo received the prestigious Woon Art Prize, jointly awarded and presented by Northumbria University and Baltic. Recent and forthcoming exhibitions include: Gallery North, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK (2018); Cafe Gallery Projects, London, UK (2018); Bonington Gallery, Nottingham, UK (2018); Goldtapped, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK (2018); Morley Gallery, London, UK (2018); Baltic 39, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK (2017); Hoxton Arches, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK (2017); The Holy Biscuit, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK (2017); FishBowl space, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK (2015); XL Gallery, Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK (2013).