Though he was born and raised in London, Tunji Adeniyi-Jones comes from a Yoruba family, and the West African culture is deeply felt in his work. Some of Adeniyi-Jones’ figures bear the striated lines of facial scarification seen in the Yoruba peoples, though the artist extends them along the contours of the body, and his bright color combinations are reminiscent of the designs of Dutch wax-printed fabric. And though the artist is inspired by images of ancient royalty, as well as deities of the Yoruba called orisha, his personal mythology of figures is ambiguous, a poetic universe born of the artist’s imagination. Adeniyi-Jones received his BFA from Oxford University in 2014 and his MFA in Painting and Printmaking from the Yale School of Art in 2017.
