25 october 2021, Flor Linckens
Tyna Adebowale: “Before travelling outside Nigeria, I never saw myself as black”
You can currently view the solo exhibition 'She called me a woman' by the multidisciplinary artist Tyna Adebowale at Ellen de Bruijne PROJECTS in Amsterdam (until 20 November). The Nigerian artist completed a residency at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in 2018 and stayed in Amsterdam after that. Adebowale initially started making paintings and drawings, but has since expanded her practice to include videos and installations.
Adebowale's often large-scale works show powerful, confident and defying figures, often against a background of monochrome colours. The figures themselves are made up of detailed black-and-white patterns — a jumble of lines and geometric shapes that can be quite dizzying up close. Adebowale shows quite a lot of pairs, which she explains as the result of being part of a twin herself. Her twin brother died young, but the artist still feels a deep bond with her brother, whom she considers to be her alter ego. Sometimes they merge in her work. Adebowale: “Me and my twin brother, me and my male side as one.” That gender fluidity characterises the artist, whose pronouns are she/her/dem. Sometimes she visualises two people to express a certain contrast: like joy and agony, or tenderness and harshness.
Tyna Adebowale, Xee. #shemademewoman, 2021, Ellen de Bruijne PROJECTS
In her work, the body becomes a symbol for a number of deeply rooted topics, including gender and identity, queerness, normativity and exclusion — especially the ways in which queer people, stories and histories have been represented. The Nigerian artist regularly travels back to her native country, where the lives of queer people have deteriorated significantly since the introduction of the infamous 'Anti-Gay-Law' in 2014. LGBTQAI+ rights are currently not recognised in Nigeria and same-sex relationships are punishable by law. The ratification of the law sparked a wave of homophobia and exclusion, based on religious conservatism.
Adebowale regularly works with local queer communities, both in Nigeria and the Netherlands. The artist also traces the histories of these communities in Nigeria. Before colonial rule, gender fluidity was much more commonplace in African cultural and spiritual history, including Nigeria. British education and Christian missionaries soon put an end to that. The legacy of Western imperialism can still be felt in contemporary Nigerian society, which had a strong focus on women before the arrival of the Europeans. Dem is fascinated by the ways in which her Nigerians contemporaries have become estranged from their own history and traditions.
Adebowale: “How can we live in this patriarchal society, when women are the creators of humanity? Why did our society erase the importance of women? Society now silences women! I am still angry and that’s why I so strongly feel the need to address these issues. I am transferring my anger into advocacy and education. [Because] before colonisation, [Nigeria] was a matriarchal society with room for everyone. There were clearly feminine men who had their place in society and women could marry other women if they were economically independent and could pay a dowry. Christianity and colonialism then completely changed society. They erased our identity and created divisions and suspicions, even amongst families. In my work, I address these topics and I use my own queer body to investigate history.”
Tyna Adebowale, Resty #beeasy, 2021, Ellen de Bruijne PROJECTS
Adebowale also looks at ways in which these stories are echoed in other societies. In her work, she creates visibility for people and communities that are normally reduced to the fringes of society, whose safety is rarely guaranteed — even in Amsterdam. Dem sees art as a powerful tool for social change. Displacement, the Nigerian diaspora and a sense of community and belonging also play a central role in Adebowale's oeuvre, subjects that affect her personally as an emigrant. Dem also mentions the special situation of being displaced as a queer person.
Incidentally, it is a lazy oversimplification to reduce the partly black and white works as a symbol for race relations. The artist does not allow you to reduce her to an orderly box — and rightfully so.
Adebowale: “I do not want to think in terms of black versus white because these are borders created by colonisers. Saying someone is black is a suppressive word. Before travelling outside Nigeria, I never saw myself as black. I see myself as someone from a royal clan in the Kukuruku hills of Edo State, Nigeria. I would never fit in the black box, as it is manipulative. Also, I am not a female artist; I am human and an artist.”She is currently in the second year of the prestigious BlackRock Senegal residency, which was founded by none other than Kehinde Wiley. Adebowale's art was recently on display at the Amsterdam Museum and last week, the gallery presented her at the FIAC art fair in Paris. Her work has been included in the collection of the well-known art collector Valeria Napoleone.
