Jadé Fadojutimi’s vibrant paintings interrogate the precariousness of self-permanence and how our environments inform our identities. Painted during the final year of her MA program at the Royal College of Art, Lotus Land, 2017, is exemplary of the highly evocative visual idiom and formal inventiveness that has catapulted the artist to international fame in the last few years. She is widely celebrated as one of the most unique voices of her generation, a reputation solidified by her status as the youngest artist in the collection of Tate, London, at just 27 years old; in 2021, she will participate in the Liverpool Biennale and a solo show of her work will be presented at the Hepworth Wakefield.  

"The self is so transient, we are very fluid beings, and we adapt to our conditions quickly."
 — Jadé Fadojutimi

Fadojutimi’s aesthetic is informed by lived experiences, specifically those in which the artist encounters a sense of otherness, which she confronts head on using paint as ammunition. Biographical yet simultaneously shattering the conception of a wholly-contained self, Fadojutimi’s oeuvre is replete with painterly waves of hopes, desires, fears and imaginaries.

 

Locating Lotus Land 

 

In Lotus Land, Fadojutimi builds up layers of navy and emerald acrylic and oil paints, inserting several openings of lime green and purple within the center of the composition. Turquoise paint is poured on the right side of the work, cut by sharp streaks of a deeper indigo blue. Lively strokes of red careen across the sky blue pool that grounds the lower half of the canvas as short and round streaks of pink hover upon two mounds of lavender. 

 

 

While the tropically lush color palette of Lotus Land conjures a specific and familiar memory of an aquatic setting, this illusion is disrupted by the vigorous gestural techniques on view in the work. The viewer is encouraged to question how a place (or space) like Lotus Land can be constructed—and what would be necessary for such a utopian place to exist. Typical of Fadojutimi’s paintings, Lotus Land opens up an expanse representative of not only the artist’s world but also of a communal, shared existence.

 

Capturing a Sense of Self 

 

From quick, highly gestural brushstrokes to the fields of color simmering with kinetic energy,  Fadojutimi’s works may at first glance appear to be purely abstract, detached from figuration and the physical world. While Lotus Land is certainly situated within a highly abstracted realm, the work is still informed by a narrative impulse; Fadojutimi has noted that she hides specific personal references in all of her works. “I think of my work as a diary of my life,” she expressed.ⁱ  

"A lot of my works are layered in what I am, or who I am. What I think things should be or shouldn’t be." 
— Jadé Fadojutimi

Fadojutimi’s gravitation to and expert manipulation of paint as a medium informs the narrative aspect of her works. She confronts concerns or insecurities about a lack of self caused from the notion that identity is fixed: it’s her own plurality of selves that are investigated in her composition. From an almost rhythmic variation of gesture, portions of the canvas appear as though paint was poured directly onto it, while in others Fadojutimi scraped the surface before it finished drying, revealing the spectrum of colors sitting below—reminiscent of Gerhard Richter’s Abstraktes Bildes.

 

Planned Gestures 

 

“Painting fills the gaps in language. There is a lot that I can’t necessarily put into words,” Fadojutimi elucidated. “We respond in ways that we only know how. When I’m making a painting, unexplained emotions come out. Language acts as a barrier between the work and the person viewing it.”ⁱⁱ This ethos, combined with the raw physicality of Fadojutimi’s paintings, evokes a direct comparison to Abstract Expressionism and artists who employed gesture’s ability to announce the spiritual or inexplicable. In this regard, her work is redolent of that of Jackson Pollock, Joan Mitchell, and Willem de Kooning and takes its place within the grand traditional of gestural abstraction and modernism.

 

However, spontaneity does not figure into Fadojutimi’s works; she meticulously plans her compositions beforehand, mentally constructing her “environments” and often mapping the painting out by drawing before approaching the canvas. Despite the relinquishment of control palpable in Lotus Land, its careful intent and extensive consideration urge us to contemplate each mark. Pushing the diaristic aspect of her work to new heights, the work echoes the profundity of its concepts that underpin it.

 

Collectors Digest 

 

• Having exhibited internationally—with solo shows at PEER, London and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami—Fadojutimi is one of the most exciting British artists of her generation.

 

• Despite formidable waiting lists at all of the artist’s representing galleries, her work is meticulously placed in museum and important private collections. Lotus Land is the first painting by the artist to come to auction.

 

ⁱ Jadé Fadojutimi, quoted in Katy Hessel, “27-Year-Old Painter Jadé Fadojutimi is in a League of Her Own,” British Vogue, August 30, 2020, online.
ⁱⁱ Jadé Fadojutimi, quoted in “Jadé Fadojutimi: Heliophobia,” Elephant, December 9, 2017, online.