It’s important for me to have first-hand experiences in situations where my Black identity is being engaged in different ways and that all comes down to what’s happening in these paintings.
Tunji Adeniyi-Jones, in an interview in Cultured magazine, Sept. 20, 2021
Throughout his practice, Tunji Adeniyi-Jones deploys a unique figurative visual language that is inspired by the history of West Africa, its related mythologies, and the artist’s Yoruba heritage – all viewed through the lens of someone born and raised in the UK and now living and working in the United States.
In Astral Reflections, nine figures move through a field of strong, bright oranges and reds. This work is a prime example of the artist’s deep interest in color, form, and pattern.
Throughout his works, androgynous figures, masked deities and regal animals dance across foliated and seasonal spaces, singing to ceremony and mythology with reverie for the natural world.
Astral Reflections is a six-plate aquatint etching with soft ground and spit bite on white Somerset Satin paper and is Adeniyi-Jones’s first editioned etching.
This gift is the first work by Adeniyi-Jones to enter the Nasher’s collection.
Learn more about the contemporary collection.