ADEBUNMI GBADEBO (1992 - )
Prime Hand.

Cotton, cotton seeds, cotton bulbs, human hair, pigments and screenprint on rice paper, 2024. 815x584 mm; 32x23 inches.

Provenance: collection of the artist.

Adebunmi Gbadebo is a multimedia artist who uses culturally and historically imbued materials to investigate the complexities between land, matter, and memory on various sites of slavery. Centering on deeply resonant materials, like indigo dye, soil hand dug from plantations, and human Black hair collected throughout the diaspora, Gbadebo has formed a visual vocabulary entirely her own. The resulting works tend to carry the stories of ancestors, families, and individuals either long overlooked or too closely surveilled.

Born in New Jersey and based between Newark and Philadelphia, Gbadebo earned her BFA at the School of Visual Arts, NY, (2017) and a certification in Creative Place Keeping at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. Gbadebo’s works are included in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, the South Carolina State Museum, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Newark Museum of Art, amongst others. Gbadebo has presented in exhibitions across the US and internationally in Africa, Europe, Asia, and will be exhibiting in the Biennale of Sydney (Australia) in 2024.

Adebunmi's work in ceramics was recently exhibited in, Hear Me Now: The Black Potters of Old Edgefield, South Carolina at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY, a show which predominantly exhibited the work of enslaved peoples, a first in the Met's history. Bio courtesy of the artist's website.

Consigned to support the Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation.