Wash Day

Location

Country: Nigeria
City: Lagos
Place: British Embassy

This vibrant print by Joy Labinjo accompanies her new large-scale commission, 5 more minutes, for Brixton Underground station – launched on 11 November 2021 and on view for one year. Drawing on her personal experiences of growing up in the UK with British-Nigerian heritage, Labinjo’s commission explores ideas of memory and belonging, and the significance of the hair salon as a centre of community in both the artist’s personal experience as well as in wider Black British female culture. This print echoes these themes, the title, Wash Day, is a familiar phrase used by black women to describe the ritual of caring for their hair. Labinjo describes the intimate scene as nostalgic, evoking memories of sitting between her mother’s legs as a child.

Born in Dagenham, London, Joy Labinjo lives and works in London. She received a MFA at the Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford in 2022 and prior to that a BA in Fine Art from the University of Newcastle (2017), during which time she also studied at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, Austria. Solo exhibitions of her work have been held most recently at Chapter, Cardiff (2022); Hospital Rooms, London; The Breeder Gallery, Athens, Greece (both 2020) and the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Newcastle-upon-Tyne (2019). Key public commissions have included work for the Becontree Estate Centenary in London and for Brixton Underground Station. Group exhibitions including her work have been held most recently at Murray Edwards College, Cambridge (2022); the Museum of African Contemporary Art Al Maaden, Marrakech, Morocco; Mirror, Plymouth (both 2021); Cafe Gallery Projects, London; and Bonington Gallery, Nottingham (both 2018). In 2017, Labinjo received the Woon Art Prize, jointly awarded and presented by Northumbria University and BALTIC. Her work has been collected by institutions including the Musée d’Art Contemporain Africain Al Maaden (MACAAL), Marrakesh; and the Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minnesota.

Places

Subjects

Materials & Techniques

paper (as artists material), print (as object name), pigment print, digital print, silkscreen print

Artist

Joy Labinjo (1994 - )

Title

Wash Day

Date

2021

Medium

digital pigment print on paper

Dimensions

height: 49.5 cm; width: 70.0 cm

Acquisition

Purchased from Art on the Underground (Transport for London), February 2022

Provenance

Art on the Underground; from whom purchased by UK Government Art Collection, 10 February 2022

GAC number

19038