Pearl Lam Galleries is delighted to announce Babajide Olatunji’s upcoming solo exhibition titled ‘ATUNWA: Portraying the Different Biographies of an Artist’. This is Olatunji’s first exhibition with the gallery where he will showcase a series of captivating portraitures that explore our collective human experience through the lens of African diaspora. Inspired by James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, the exhibition references the Yoruba linguistic tradition prevalent in West Africa which explores the phenomenon of reincarnation as derived from the doctrines of Ifa, the deity of wisdom and intellectual development, signifying transcendence across different times and spaces.
Olatunji was born in Nigeria and is based in London and his artistic practice is rooted in engaging with Nigerian history and culture. Rejecting the notion of historical revision and identity politics, the artist deliberately turns away from addressing the injustices resulting from colonisation. Instead, he seeks to repurpose art history, asserting that there is no need to reclaim anything from the colonial past. His aim is to tell Nigeria’s own history, acknowledge its rich lineage, and pay tribute to ancestry as something common to humanity.
ATUNWA stages seven chapters of imaginary biographies with painting through which Olatunji presents a collective rebirth of characters from the African diaspora, each embodying different social and moral roles. These fictional subjectivities serve as a social commentary, shedding light on psychological states resulting from loss, self-identity, perseverance, kinship, womanhood, domesticity, containment, social mobility, and intellectuality. Each chapter presented in the exhibition represents a unique individual closely associated with the artist, serving as a conscious reflection of fate and different paths.
Through the depiction of aging in the three paintings dedicated to each character, the exhibition serves as a collective reminder of the transient nature of life and the universal destiny we all share. Furthermore, the facial scarification in some characters serves as a source code representing their cultural origin. The gleaming gaze in individual portraits evoke a sense of hope and ambition, suggesting that all is right with the world. However, a subtle tinge of wariness and fear about an uncertain future and mounting familial responsibilities can be seen in the subjects’ eyes, while the slightly pinched mouths add a touch of solemnity to the overall expression.
ATUNWA raises intriguing questions about the existence of his subjects in different social strata, imagining the unique journeys and struggles they would encounter. These fictional characters include Amiya Dorcas Shekwokusumi, a proud Gbagyi woman who discovered her passion for storytelling from her grandmother’s captivating tales of Gwari culture. Dantala Dennis Ibrahim, a scholar and painter, explores forgotten histories and portrays vibrant landscapes of the African Savanna. Babájídé Olatunji, the artist himself, inspired by his elder brother, uses his artistic talents to navigate and contribute to the world around him.
This exhibition conveys the artist’s technical prowess and storytelling ability, but also serves as a catalyst for introspection and empathy. It prompts viewers to consider the multiplicity of human experiences and the interconnectedness of our shared humanity, encouraging a deeper understanding of the diverse paths we all walk in this complex and increasingly segregated world. ATUNWA opens on the 30th of March and will run until the 19th of May 2024 at Pearl Lam Galleries in Shanghai, China.
