Adeniyi Makes A Debut Solo Show in Nigeria

For art lovers in Lagos, this weekend is indeed a special one as Deborah Detoun Adeniyi’s ‘Still & Searching’ berths at Untitled at SO.NNE, on Maitama Sule, Ikoyi. The show which is the artist’s first solo exhibition in Lagos is an inaugural presentation by multi-disciplinary arts platform, the Cell co, founded by Arinola Olowoporoku who is the curator for this exhibition.

Described as an all-encompassing journey with themes of sisterhood, contemplation, introspection and extrospection, this body of work is a response to jolting life events that transforms personhood and alters all interactive dynamic.

Searching in itself connotes moving around or looking through carefully in order to find something missing or lost, to explore or examine an idea or a person in order to discover. The exhibition, ‘Still and searching’ thus invites the viewers to exist and navigate parallel worlds.

While contemplating and examining perspectives at large, Adeniyi infuses symbolisms that depict her natural environment, physical bare form and existence. The artist aims to maintain a stillness juxtaposed with a chaotic context through the whimsical scenery, searching for what was once had, now lost yet unknown.

Her work is expressionist in nature with figurative tendencies, using allegories from global culture, places from imagined memory, she dotes on themes that reflect her personal identity, exploring her sensibilities and artistic awareness.  The representation of her subjects is critical, female figures, imagined or layered. She uses mosaic on her subjects to introduce an open ended existence pulling the audience in to interrogate the complexities of being lying behind the face.

The paintings in this body of work were achieved through experimentation and using the canvas as a method of collection of her thoughts, as medium of expression, therapeutic routine and as a learning opportunity for personal development.

Through her work, Detoun seeks to evoke emotions in people unaware, emotions that may have formerly gone unperturbed.  She focuses on self-representation, a principal focus of Detoun’s work is femininity, her representation of women is critical to the narrative being presented. She is meticulous about her depiction of black skin highlighting the complexity in variation carefully fluid without limit or expectation.

The 29-year old Adeniyi was born in the UK but lived in Lagos in her early years before relocating to the UK all within early childhood. All her life, she has identified and experimented with varying mediums including performance art, fine and visual art, whether in formal and informal settings. Detoun’s bicultural view comes with the need to satisfy a nagging curiosity, her early work was based on exploring the existing tension caused by the divide of her Eurocentric environment and geographical culture and her Nigerian background, heritage and cultural identity.

Having spent most of her life in the UK, there’s been a notion of displacement feeling far yet close and strange but familiar to her home country. She approaches her work interrogating her fit into both worlds. with a Bachelor’s degree in Accounting & Finance from the University of Kent, she has worked the majority of the decade in the financial services sector. Through her artistic process she finds therapy, she articulates complex emotion influenced by the steady uncertainty. Her debut showcase was a series of acrylic paintings conceived in the process, exhibited in The Hull Room, Brixton August 2021 in a solo show titled ‘Inspired by Her’.