Ife Olarewaju
For this exhibition I aimed to reflect the sensation of blackness ; the intergenerational and present political site that has become race and the feeling that has brought for me . I began in my comfort zone with photography and digital art . I aimed to broaden my media and imagery , taking inspiration from films , songs and even political theory . I looked through past work which inspired me to try different processes such as paint on glass , or monoprinting . I experimented with colours doing vibrant , dark and monochromatic pieces . However , I think my biggest struggle was thematically .
In aiming to transcribe a black experience , I realised that I had centred violence . I had essentialised the experience to one of dispossession , vitriol and displacement . While I believe the artist has a responsibility to be an interlocutor of the issues of the time , I also believe that images birth our reality . Looking at artists like Kerry James Marshall , Tyler Mitchell and others who make it a constant practice to depict black joy as well as struggles inspired me to take new directions .
I started making pieces about potentially neutral states of being , the magnitude of legacy and others that became some of my favourite pieces in the exhibition . I don ’ t have any less of an affinity to the pieces about violence . I think if anything making my exhibition has taught me that joy and violence are often intertwined ; that the black experience is often joy despite violence . As Fela Kuti critically put it , we are constantly shuffering and shmiling .