Joy Labinjo

A powerful exploration of race, identity, and community through vibrant figurative paintings that blend personal and historical imagery with contemporary Black culture.

Joy Labinjo (b.1994) is a British-Nigerian artist based in London. Bringing together paintings made between 2017 and 2024, this monograph coincides with her institutional solo exhibition We Are Briefly Gorgeous at Southwark Park Galleries, London, which opened in July 2024.

Labinjo uses the human figure as a vehicle to explore topics such as storytelling, identity, and race, and how they intersect with wider social, cultural, and political contexts. Her work is informed by her experiences growing up as both a Londoner and as part of the African diaspora. Her large-scale figurative paintings often depict Black bodies from the past and present––both real and imagined. Working from personal and archival imagery, including family photographs, found images, and historical material, she captures scenes of joy, leisure, and perseverance in everyday life. As a painter fundamentally concerned with people’s stories, she expands the dialogue around contemporary Black culture.

For We Are Briefly Gorgeous, Labinjo produced a new body of work in response to the multicultural area of Southwark in South London. Rendered in her distinctive style of flat layers of color and graphic patterning, the paintings capture families, friends, and individuals in Southwark Park and Bermondsey. Developed from site visits and taken and found photographs, the intimate scenes document the physical, social, and lived experiences of local communities.

Alongside installation views and reproductions of the exhibited paintings, the book documents Labinjo’s works from 2017 onwards. Organized thematically, it explores the artist’s interests in ‘Family, Friends and Community’, ‘Social Criticism’, ‘Historical Animation’, and ‘Self-portraiture’. The paintings grouped together in the second section mark the beginning of the artist’s more satirical, politically engaged approach, instigated by the COVID-19 pandemic and the murder of George Floyd in 2020. ‘Historical Animation’ compiles Labinjo’s paintings of Black historical figures, such as Sarah Forbes Bonetta, Olaudah Equiano, Francis Barber, and Charles Ignatius Sancho. In this series, the artist explores the histories of British portraiture, and the erasure of Black identities through the white gaze.

An introduction by Dr Christine Checinska, the inaugural Senior Curator of African and Diaspora Textiles and Fashion at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, contextualizes Labinjo’s figurative practice in relation to a lineage of Black British painters, including Claudette Johnson and Lubaina Himid. An essay by curator and writer Dr Jareh Das expands on this, unpacking the artist’s recent works and analyzing her ability to represent stories that connect cultural identities across time and geographies. An interview between Labinjo and Adelaide Bannerman, the Curatorial Director at Tiwani Contemporary, takes an in-depth look at the artist’s methodology, political themes, and approach to nude self-portraiture.

Edited by Bannerman, Martina Mei and Matt Price, designed by Hyperkit, produced by Hurtwood and published by Tiwani Contemporary and Anomie Publishing, London, the book has been generously supported by the A. G. Leventis Foundation.