THE WORK

OA: My paintings show people phasing in and out of landscapes. Through them I question my diasporic experience – being both British and Nigerian. They are both allegories and realities. Each painting has a story to tell and as the viewer looks into them, her own nature is revealed. I want to spark curiosity. I want people to question the purpose of these legacies. The large painting has a biblical reference, but it is also grounded in Solange’s music videos. Solange talks about her experience as a black woman in the art world, not just making songs for herself but, rather, making art for people to consume. I am playing off this idea. I want viewers to feel like they’re intruding on the scene. The Old Masters’ paintings draw people in: you feel like you’re inside a secret. That’s what I want my paintings to do.

DMZ: My practice uses a traditional medium and pushes it in an unconventional way. It is rooted in my family. Growing up with my grandmother and learning about textiles, I developed my tactile sensibility. I communicate through that, telling different stories with the materials. The word ‘textiles’ has the same root as ‘text’, meaning ‘to weave’. It’s as if I’m writing when I’m weaving. The materials themselves have different metaphors and are from different places. I brought most with me to the residency and some I found in a hardware store in Camden. How I relate to colour is, in some senses, painterly, but at the same time, it is more than visual for me. I hear colours and I dream about weaving – it’s synaesthetic. My works have a humour to them – bulbous forms that explode, fly, trip, with little antennae. I want to play with and through my work, and so, hopefully, spark joy within the viewer. I see these pieces as extensions of myself, a release of feelings. They are emotionally-charged, material expressions of a non-verbal language. The works I have made on the residency are my first small-scale series of sculptural pieces and I’m excited to explore the space beyond the gallery wall with them. 

AK: I am interested in portraying subcultures like goth and grunge in my paintings and being in Camden has been stimulating for this. How do you paint dark subjects? What are the influences that tie these subjects together, and how do you translate that in paint? Whether through a colour palette or erratic brush marks. During this residency, I have looked at imagery first-hand, which is new for me. More and more, the subjects of my painting are friends and people I have met. That is something I will continue to explore, after the residency. I have become more interested in how the outside affects my work inside the studio: through conversation, ideas, people.