British-Nigerian painter Joy Labinjo will present a new body of work, We Are Briefly Gorgeous, for Southwark Park Galleries’ 40th anniversary programme from July 6 to September 29, 2024, at the Lake Gallery.
Celebrating the local community, taking scenes from Southwark Park and the Bermondsey area as a starting point, the works in the series will flow and develop from Labinjo’s visits to the park and how she observed people spending time there. Sourced from a combination of taken and found imagery, the paintings rely on the sense of the familiar and the hope that a wide range of people will see themselves in the works, feeling welcome to spend time with them.
Joy Labinjo often depicts intimate moments, both real and imagined, and often based on figures appearing in family photographs, found images, and historical or archival material. In the past, she has explored themes such as identity, political voice, power, Blackness, race, history, community, and family and their role in contemporary experience. Her distinctive painting style presents fresh and arresting compositions of colour, pattern, and motifs. At the heart of Labinjo’s practice is a bold interest in storytelling and, ultimately, people’s lives.
Labinjo’s work is fundamentally about her British-Nigerian heritage and what that experience means. Her recent exhibitions include The Body Electric, Larsen Warner Gallery, Stockholm, Sweden (group – 2024); Beloved, Take What You Need, Tiwani Contemporary, London, UK (solo – 2023); Real Families, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, UK (group – 2023); A Bout Des Mes Rêves, Vanhaerents Collection at Tripostale, Lille, UK (group – 2023); Africa Supernova, Kunsthal Kade, Amersfoort, Netherlands (group – 2023).
We Are Briefly Gorgeous is commissioned by Southwark Park Galleries, London, and generously supported by Arts Council England, Tiwani Contemporary, London, and OMNI.
