blank is pleased to present a solo exhibition by Motunrayo Akinola (b.1992, London).
Motunrayo Akinola is a London-based artist whose work explores themes of access and belonging using historical imagery and/or text to contextualise narratives of today. Thinking predominantly in sculpture, installation, sound and drawings, Akinola’s work seeks a nuanced engagement with history and the present in order to come to new understandings abou post-colonial power dynamics and ownership of space.
As a British-born Nigerian who feels comfortable in both spaces, Akinola’s work investigates systems and subtle cultural codes which work insidiously to maintain a sense of othering. He aims to create spaces and engagements which question current society’s position on contemporary issues.
Taking into account the above sentiment of French scholar Michel de Certeau published in “The Practice of Everyday Life” when surveying Akinola’s oeuvre, it makes sense to draw linkages to past treatises in the studies of culture, power and ideology that have tried to demonstrate how the “ordinary” and seemingly domestic intersects with broader political, economic and social systems, whether it concerns urban planning, living space and personal relationships. de Certeau’s proposition resonates strongly with some of Akinola’s conceptual intentions, such as his interest in the viewer and not just the image and object, how the gaze complicates what is being viewed, and the rituals of the everyday and ways in which the ordinary can be rendered complex or weaponised as a tool for change/pointed analysis.
Looking at his immersive installations for example - one might say that these act as invites into ritual activity that coach the participant/viewer in methods of subverting predominant power systems and cultural norms that regulate everyday life and suppress and marginalise alternative viewpoints. In his installation Knees Kiss Ground, made during Akinola’s six-month residency at The South London Gallery (2024), the artist, drawing on his architectural background, creates a poignant symbol through the replication of a shipping container using corrugated cardboard. The work is an examination of ideas around space, (dis)comfort, nostalgia, ownership and post colonial power dynamics, while also directing a sharp focus and a critique of 21st century capitalism’s political-economic dynamics and how these shape policies around migration and the texture of everyday modern life.
For the exhibition at blank projects, titled UPPER AND LOWER CENTRAL, Akinola presents a series of works made in charcoal on linen depicting abstract compositions that balance areas of dense blackness with negative space. The elusiveness that lies in the abstraction of these drawings also hides a cohesive pattern of things coming together, interacting and balanced and perhaps falling apart again. On closer reading of the works we can perceive the artist’s deft use of subtle coding - while not immediately evident it is eventually possible to discern his use of imagery inspired by different traditions of teeth blackening as found in some South East Asian customs. He uses this symbolism as a way to provoke a tension around notions and assumptions of beauty. By invoking the practice of teeth blackening - the artist brings to the fore a change in generational attitudes that are powered by a more self affirming embrace of ones heritage.
With his multi-idiomatic approach that refuses strict category, the artist challenges us to give our immediate world a new language, petitioning us to start addressing it in a new lexicon. As it is with any investigatory work, the results of Akinola’s social forensics are not yet known but what is undeniable is that as viewers, we are left implicated by his questions and provocations.
UPPER AND LOWER CENTRAL is Akinola’s first exhibition with blank.
Motunrayo Akinola is a London-based artist whose work explores themes of access and belonging using historical imagery and/or text to contextualise narratives of today. Thinking predominantly in sculpture, installation, sound and drawings, Akinola’s work seeks a nuanced engagement with history and the present in order to come to new understandings abou post-colonial power dynamics and ownership of space.
As a British-born Nigerian who feels comfortable in both spaces, Akinola’s work investigates systems and subtle cultural codes which work insidiously to maintain a sense of othering. He aims to create spaces and engagements which question current society’s position on contemporary issues.
“What the map cuts up, the story cuts across. In the same way, operations of walking, wandering, or ‘window shopping’, that is, the activity of passers-by, transform the street (a spatial organisation) into a space of enunciation” (de Certeau, 1980)
Taking into account the above sentiment of French scholar Michel de Certeau published in “The Practice of Everyday Life” when surveying Akinola’s oeuvre, it makes sense to draw linkages to past treatises in the studies of culture, power and ideology that have tried to demonstrate how the “ordinary” and seemingly domestic intersects with broader political, economic and social systems, whether it concerns urban planning, living space and personal relationships. de Certeau’s proposition resonates strongly with some of Akinola’s conceptual intentions, such as his interest in the viewer and not just the image and object, how the gaze complicates what is being viewed, and the rituals of the everyday and ways in which the ordinary can be rendered complex or weaponised as a tool for change/pointed analysis.
Looking at his immersive installations for example - one might say that these act as invites into ritual activity that coach the participant/viewer in methods of subverting predominant power systems and cultural norms that regulate everyday life and suppress and marginalise alternative viewpoints. In his installation Knees Kiss Ground, made during Akinola’s six-month residency at The South London Gallery (2024), the artist, drawing on his architectural background, creates a poignant symbol through the replication of a shipping container using corrugated cardboard. The work is an examination of ideas around space, (dis)comfort, nostalgia, ownership and post colonial power dynamics, while also directing a sharp focus and a critique of 21st century capitalism’s political-economic dynamics and how these shape policies around migration and the texture of everyday modern life.
For the exhibition at blank projects, titled UPPER AND LOWER CENTRAL, Akinola presents a series of works made in charcoal on linen depicting abstract compositions that balance areas of dense blackness with negative space. The elusiveness that lies in the abstraction of these drawings also hides a cohesive pattern of things coming together, interacting and balanced and perhaps falling apart again. On closer reading of the works we can perceive the artist’s deft use of subtle coding - while not immediately evident it is eventually possible to discern his use of imagery inspired by different traditions of teeth blackening as found in some South East Asian customs. He uses this symbolism as a way to provoke a tension around notions and assumptions of beauty. By invoking the practice of teeth blackening - the artist brings to the fore a change in generational attitudes that are powered by a more self affirming embrace of ones heritage.
With his multi-idiomatic approach that refuses strict category, the artist challenges us to give our immediate world a new language, petitioning us to start addressing it in a new lexicon. As it is with any investigatory work, the results of Akinola’s social forensics are not yet known but what is undeniable is that as viewers, we are left implicated by his questions and provocations.
UPPER AND LOWER CENTRAL is Akinola’s first exhibition with blank.
