Ode to Equiano

Location

Country: UK
City: London
Place: Cabinet Office, 70 Whitehall

Joy Labinjo’s distinctive painting style with its flat perspectives and sculpted, abstract almost graphic rendering is applied here to a portrait of Olaudah Equiano. This is a contemporary take on a historical portrait of Equiano which is now in the Royal Albert Memorial Museum and Art Gallery in Exeter. Known for his memoir published in 1789, the first known book by a Black African writer in Europe, Equiano was enslaved as a child, kidnapped from his family home in what is now Nigeria and was set to work in the Caribbean. He was later able to buy his freedom and gain an education. He settled in England, living in relative prosperity and becoming one of the leading figures of the British abolitionist movement. Being British, with a Nigerian heritage herself, Labinjo has been struck by the lack of images of leading historic Black figures in Britain’s consciousness and this portrait is one of a series of such figures she painted as her response.

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.

People

Olaudah, Equiano (c.1745 - 1797)

Places

Subjects

Materials & Techniques

canvas, paint, oil paint, oil painting, oil stick

Artist

Joy Labinjo (1994 - )

Title

Ode to Equiano

Date

2022

Medium

oil paint, oil stick, canvas

Dimensions

height: 200.0 cm; width: 150.0 cm

Acquisition

Purchased from Tiwani Contemporary, March 2022

Provenance

Tiwani Contemporary, London UK; from whom purchased by UK Government Art Collection, 28 March 2022

GAC number

19054