Tafeta takes Plaisir, Olatunji to The Armory Show

From Marielle Plaisir..Pic: c/o Tfeta Gallery.

AT the 2021 The Armory Show Presents section, London U.K-based gallery, Tafeta will present works by artists Marielle Plaisir and Babajide Olatunji  The Armory Show will be held at  New York's Javits Center from September 9 - 12, 2021.

Plaisir (b.1978), based in Miami, US, is a French-Caribbean multi-media artist, who combines painting, drawing, monumental installations and performance to present highly intense visual experiences. Olatunji (b.1989), based in Lagos, Nigeria, is a full-time studio artist and autodidact based in Nigeria, whose extensive research into age-old practices of his indigenous Yoruba culture are manifested in a number of critically acclaimed series of drawings and paintings.

Dedicated, disciplined and gifted, the showcased artists have enjoyed increased institutional attention. Plaisir recently showed at the Museum of Orlando and the Bo Bartlett Center, Columbia University, where she was presented as this year's winner of the prestigious Southern Prize. Olatunji has followed up a showing at the curated section of London’s Royal Academy of Arts Summer Show with a six-week residency at the Bridge Point Arts Centre in Rye, UK. 

Works from Plaisir’s The Malediction of Cham series poetically explores intersectionality through vibrant portraits of black activists' personalities such as Nina Simone, Miles Davies, Aretha Franklin and Maya Angelou. Creating delicate renderings presented as backlit light boxes, Plaisir highlights and magnifies the black figures who fought and raised their voices against discrimination of race, gender and class.

Olatunji's long-standing portraiture series, Tribal Marks, documents the age-old practice of tribal markings in present-day Nigeria. A contemporary reflection on representation as cultural reliquary, Olatunji’s featured works use portraiture to highlight different forms of facial markings found in Nigerian communities. Each rendering portrays a unique, fictitious character. Without looking at photographs, the trained botanist uses his understanding of three-dimensional form to construct characters that embody the familiar—the young girl, the bearded elder, or the middle-aged man.

 About the Artists

Babajide Olatunji

With a bachelor’s degree in botany from the Obafemi Awolowo University in Ile-Ife, Nigeria, Babajide Olatunji is a self-taught, full-time studio artist. In seven years of full-time studio practice, Olatunji has shown in multiple cities globally and works from his Tribal Marks and Aroko series have been incredibly well-received.

His paintings have been acquired by the Mott-Warsh Collection in Michigan, as well as important private collections in Switzerland, London, Lagos, Istanbul and New York, including the private collection of his highness, King Mohammed VI of Morocco.

In 2017 Olatunji was selected for inclusion in a curated section of the Royal Academy of Arts Summer Show in the UK, and in 2020, he completed a six-week residency at the Bridge Point Arts Centre in Hastings U.K.

Marielle Plaisir

Marielle Plaisir holds a Master of fine Arts degree from the University of Bordeaux in Bordeaux, France.

She is a French-Caribbean multi-media artist, who combines painting, drawing, monumental installations and performance to present highly intense visual experiences. 

Works from The Malediction of Cham series have been shown in multiple group and solo exhibitions globally,and acquired by private collections in London, Miami, New York and Los Angeles. Recent institutional shows have included the  Museum of Orlando and the Bo Bartlett Center, Colombia University.

In June 2021, Plaisir was awarded the 2021 Southern Prize along with a two-week residency at the Hambidge Center for the Creative Arts and Sciences.