When we contemplate Tyna Adebowale’s work, we become aware of the unrelenting negotiation of relationships, sexualities, and freedom of people identifying in the queer spectrum.
When we contemplate Tyna Adebowale’s work, we become aware of the unrelenting negotiation of relationships, sexualities, and freedom of people identifying in the queer spectrum. The difficulties of being and striving under the restrains of heteronormative biopolitics and the pervasive religious substrate of colonialism are fought with an artistic practice that centres dissidence in beautiful and powerful depictions of empowered resistance.
Intrinsic in Adebowale’s work are ongoing processes of questioning and representation of queer bodies, stories, and histories. The models in her paintings are infused with raw emotion and defiance while exuding an unapologetic power in reclaimed intimacies and visibilities. Just like the vividness through which they are painted, they are testimonies of the dualities of joy and agony, of belonging and displacement, of tenderness and harshness. There is no other position but to see them and be, even for a moment, unavoidably faced with their striking presence. Their monumentality is of a rebelling new-found comfort in their bodies, despite being constantly othered.
Tyna Adebowale (1982, Nigeria) lives and works in Amsterdam.
Recent exhibitions include Refresh Amsterdam 2020-2021 (Amsterdam Museum), The Future is Female (CODA Museum,Appeldorn) 2020, Lang Art solo booth at Art Rotterdam (2019), What if Women Rule The World? (Garage-Rotterdam 2019). She is the second recipient of the Jacqueline Van Tongeren Fellowship For African Artists (2017-2018), 3Package Deal Award (2019-2020) Recipient from the AFK grant, Amsterdam. She recently became a second-year artist in residency at the prestigious BlackRock Senegal, run by Kehinde Wiley, and completed a two-year residency at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten.