LONDON.- White Cube is pleased to announce representation of the New York-based artist Tunji Adeniyi-Jones. His first exhibition with the gallery opens at White Cube Bermondsey from 19 November 2021 – January 2022.

Born and educated in the UK and now living and working in the USA, Adeniyi-Jones’s practice is inspired by the ancient history of West Africa and its attendant mythology, as well as his Yoruba heritage. His vibrant compositions are comprised of abstract backgrounds of lush, stylized foliage with sinewy bodies emerging and dissolving into tessellating shapes and interlocking swathes of colour.

Positioning his works within a specifically Nigerian cultural landscape, notably the post-colonial writing of Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka and Amos Tutuola, Adeniyi-Jones addresses the perception of the black body within Western painting – and in particular, its association with physicality – using the body as both narrative instrument and primary tool of communication.

‘Tunji Adeniyi-Jones: Astral Reflections’, the artist’s first solo exhibition in the UK, opens at Charleston, East Sussex, from 16 September 2021 – 13 March 2022, followed by a London exhibition at White Cube in November 2021.

Tunji Adeniyi-Jones was born in London in 1992 and lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. In 2014 he received his Bachelors in Fine Arts from The Ruskin School of Art, Oxford University, UK and in 2017 he was awarded an MFA in painting and printmaking from Yale School of Art, Connecticut, USA.

Recent solo exhibitions include 39 Great Jones Street, New York (2020); ‘Patterns and Rituals’, Nicelle Beauchene Gallery, New York (2020); ‘Dreams Through Seasons: New Paintings’, The Cabin, Los Angeles (2018); and ‘Flash of the Spirit’, Nicelle Beauchene Gallery, New York (2017). Selected group exhibitions include ‘Citizens of Memory’, The Perimeter, London (2021); ‘Forms of Life’, Morán Morán, Los Angeles (2020); ‘A Chance Encounter’, (curated by Tunji Adeniyi-Jones), Parts & Labor, Beacon, New York; ‘to dream a man’, Clima, Milan (2020); ‘Art on the Grid’, Public Art Fund, New York (2020); ‘Black voices, Black microcosm’, CF HILL, Stockholm, Sweden (2020); ‘Young, Gifted and Black: The Lumpkin-Boccuzzi Family Collection’, OSilas Gallery at Concordia College, Bronxville, New York (2019); Lehman College Art Gallery, Bronx, New York (2020); and ‘Go Figure!’, Eric Firestone, East Hampton, New York (2019).

Forthcoming solo exhibitions include ‘Astral Reflections’, Charleston, East Sussex, UK (2021); White Cube, Bermondsey, London (2021) and Morán Morán, Los Angeles (2021).