Jadé Fadojutimi’s Typhoon (2015) marks an important and pivotal moment in the artist’s astronomical rise to success and worldwide recognition. Typhoon was executed during the artist’s final year at the Slade School of Art and exhibited at her degree show in 2015, where it was acquired by the current Private Collector. In 2019, Jadé became the youngest artist in the prestigious Tate Collection at the age of 27 years old. Recently celebrated with her solo show at Pippy Houldsworth Gallery (September – October 2020), she also currently forms part of the group exhibition Present Generations: Creating the Scantland Collection of the Columbus Museum of Art through May 2022. Jadé was included in Tate Liverpool, Liverpool Biennial this year and is working towards solo exhibitions at the Hepworth Wakefield, ICA Miami and Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin in 2022.
'I remember when I started at the Slade I wanted to paint the indescribable, because the spectrum of what I was experiencing I couldn’t translate into language.'
—Jadé Fadojutimi
Gestural and energetic, Jadé’s mastery and exploration in paint sits on the spectrum between abstraction and figuration, creating her own distinctly personal visual language. The works obtain their colours, shapes and forms from Japanese anime, soundtracks, clothes, memories and experiences - elements that Jadé has collected and compartmentalised since childhood: ‘I feel my art has always been related to my personal interests, and I have always wanted to question them through working […] When I started at the Slade I was really interested in sound and soundtracks, and the things I was drawn to as a kid. I might have been translating them differently, as I was using them more as a way to understand a relationship with paint and colour, but as time went on my works came to understand a more personal relationship with colour that I see within the things that I surrounded myself with personally, such as objects, clothing and animations I was watching.’i
Jadé was born and raised in East London, the daughter to Nigerian parents. This cultural duality of being British with Nigerian heritage raised continuous questions for the artist around identity and the idea of self. For Jadé, Japanese anime became a of form of escapism, an opportunity for complete transportation and absorption: ‘Japan was my Disneyland; it was a form of escapism.’ii Jadé would find herself taking inward journeys whilst listening to anime soundtracks, whisked away to a vivid fantastical land.
It was during her studies at the Slade that the artist was preoccupied with painted ‘environments’. Through the eddying dynamic handling of paint, Typhoon calls into question how the location depicted could be constructed in real life. Working from her bank of stored knowledge and imagination, Jadé creates these mysterious landscapes attempting to create her own form of reality which is parallel to but separate from the physical world.
Expressing onto the canvas an organic amalgamation of memory and feeling, her titles similarly derive from natural associations: ‘whilst I am working if there is a sentence or a word that comes to mind or reminds me of something or something I have said in the past is brought to the surface, that will usually be the title […] My titles are very natural relationships to the work and they really capture how I speak. I think that I have a bit of a dark sense of humour as well.’iii Typhoon, a title that conjures a giant rotating storm, bringing with it wind, rain and destruction, is conveyed in swirling tones of blue, green and purple, energetically applied to the canvas with large gestural brushstrokes. Shadows, figures, and features are partially visible through the enigmatic painterly washes. A figure, reminiscent of Japanese anime, emerges at the centre of the work, clinging steadfastly to a vertical rod, a lifeline. Typhoon can be viewed as a literal representation of the artist’s inner exploration, her way of physically deciphering and mentally computing.
'When you live in a bubble, the outside world becomes something you can create.
I’m understanding more and more what happens when you are unable to diversify your encounters, maybe. The imagination can manifest itself in miraculous ways.
Whilst I’m painting, the harmonious unity of my senses becomes apparent. They muddle together, chitter-chattering about their newfound warmth as though it’s their first connection. This first meeting seems to happen almost every day.'
—Jadé Fadojutimi
Marking the foundation to an artistic career that has taken the world by storm, within Typhoon we see Jadé exploring notions of identity and placement fuelled by a myriad of personal influences. Through a uniquely gestural and expressive handling of paint, Jadé raises the concerns that form the basis of her most celebrated works.
Jadé Fadojutimi in her studio, 2021. Courtesy of the Liverpool Biennial.
