Joy Labinjo’s large-scale figurative paintings often depict intimate scenes of historical and contemporary life, both real and imagined and often based on figures appearing in personal and archival imagery that include family photographs, found images and historical material. In the past, she has explored themes including but not limited to identity, political voice, power, Blackness, race, history, community and family and their role in contemporary experience.
Her work presents fresh and arresting compositions of colour, pattern and motifs: key signatures of Labinjo’s work. Fundamentally, at the heart of Labinjo’s practice is a bold interest in storytelling and ultimately, people’s lives. Exploring multiple modes of representation including abstraction, naturalism, flatness and graphic patterns, Labinjo’s ‘collage aesthetic’ comprises an eclectic visual vocabulary and mixed painterly techniques which echo her experience of multiple identities – growing up Black, British, Nigerian in the 90s and early 00s.

Tiwani Contemporary

London

Miami

Art Basel Miami

Nottingham

Bonington Gallery

Newcastle upon Tyne

Baltic 39

Lagos

Hospital Rooms

Athens

The Breeder

Morley Gallery

Gallery North

Goldtapped

Marrakesh

MACAAL - Museum of African Contemporary Art Al Maaden

Royal Academy of Arts

Los Angeles

Minneapolis Institute Of Art

Gateshead

Baltic Centre For Contemporary Art (Baltic Flour Mill)

Joy Labinjo

Oxford

Mansfield College

University Of Oxford

Vienna

University Of Applied Arts Vienna

Gratitude

Tropic Snow 1