ADEJOKE TUGBIYELE

**Adejoke Tugbiyelre**, *Same-Sex 2.0*, 2017. Palm spines and paint, height 60 cm.

Adejoke Tugbiyele is an award-winning, queer, black artist and advocate. She was a featured participant in CultureSummit 2017-Abu Dhabi, is a recipient of the 2016 Joan Mitchell Painters and Sculptors Grant, one of 100 Leading Global Thinkers in 2015, and a U.S. Fulbright Student Alumni. While a graduate student at Maryland Institute College of Art, Tugbiyele was awarded the Amalie Rothschild ’34 Rinehart Award in 2012 and the William M. Phillips ’54 Scholarship for Best Figurative Sculpture in 2013.

Tugbiyele’s works are charged with symbolic meanings that bridge and layer historical, cultural and political ideas around race, gender and sexuality with that of class, economy, sex-politics and religion. Tugbiyele works with a diverse range of materials including wire, natural fibres, fabric and wood to create intricate sculptures, which are on occasion integrated into moving performances. She engages ideas about matriarchal forms, systems and strategies in response to patriarchal frameworks; blurring the lines between the dual nature of masculinity and femininity. The concept of duality resonates strongly in her weaving of natural and industrial materials as it dances around natural and artificial light. Tugbiyele’s work can be found in corporate, private and public collections worldwide such as The Brooklyn Museum, Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution and The Newark Museum. In 2002, she received a Bachelor of Science in Architecture from the New Jersey Institute of Technology and in 2013, graduated with a Master of Fine Arts in Sculpture from Maryland Institute College of Art.

Tugbiyele’s work Musician II, 2014 will be exhibited at Daimler Art Collection, Berlin, as part of the group show 31: Women (February 29th 2020 — February 7th 2021.)

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View below for career highlights and works for sale by the artist.

ADEJOKE TUGBIYELE Items From Our Store

CAREER HIGHLIGHTS

Flight of Revelation, 2011.

Musician II, 2014.

AfroQueer, 2014.

SELECTED WORKS

Love Boat 2.0, 2017.

Sound Box, 2017.

Same-Sex 2.0, 2017.

Kidnapped, 2015.

Love Birds, 2015.

ADEJOKE TUGBIYELE

Born 1977, New York, USA.

Education
2013		Maryland Institute College of Art, Rinehart School of Sculpture Master of Fine Arts
2002		New Jersey School of Architecture at NJIT B.S. Architecture (w/ honors)
1995		High School of Art and Design, NYC Diploma Architecture (w/ honors)

Selected solo exhibitions
2018		Adejoke Tugbiyele, Second Street Gallery, Virginia, USA
2017		SHIFTING THE WAVES: The Mask, The Boat, The Broom, The Box, 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair with October Gallery, London, UK
2017		Freedom Dance II, Leslie Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, New York, USA
2016		Grassroots, Skoto Gallery, New York, USA
2015		TESTIMONY, Goodman Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2014		Election/Erection, Gallery Aferro, New Jersey, USA
2013		FAST FORWARD: MFA Thesis Exhibition, Metro Gallery, Baltimore, USA
2010		WAHALA TEMI - BODY WORK, The Walsh Gallery, Seton Hall University, South Orange, New Jersey, USA
2004		Dynamic Dark Matter, Philosophy Box Gallery, New York, USA

Selected group exhibitions
2020		31: Women, Daimler Art Collection, Berlin, Germany
2017		Cool Culture, The UnGala – Honoring Teresita Fernández and Reggie Van Lee, IAC Headquarters, New York, USA Here: Telling the Stories of Survivors, Silverbird Galleria, Lagos, Nigeria CultureSummit2017, Abu Dhabi, Manarat Al Saadiyat, Abu Dhabi, UAE
2016		AKAA (Also Known As Africa), Carreau du Temple, Paris, France with October Gallery, London, UK Art on the Vine in Martha’s Vineyard, The Agora Culture, Massachusetts, USA Africa’s Out!, Pioneer Works, Brooklyn, New York, USA Disguise: Masks and Global African Art, The Brooklyn Museum, New York, USA Videonale in Lagos: Changing City – Shifting Spaces, Centre for Contemporary Art (CCALagos), VanLagos and Goethe Institut – Nigeria, Lagos, Nigeria
2015		Agitprop! The Brooklyn Museum, New York, USA 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair, with October Gallery, London, UK A River Depends on its Tributaries, The Walsh Gallery at Seton Hall University, New Jersey, USA Resignifications/Black Portraitures, Biagiotti Progetto Arte, Florence, Italy Speaking Back, Goodman Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa Art15: London’s Global Art Fair, with October Gallery, London, UK No Such Place, Edward Tyler Nahem Fine Art, New York, USA
2014		Interwoven Histories, October Gallery, London, UK The Subject is Black, Leslie Lohman Museum of Gay & Lesbian Art: Prince St. Project Space, New York, USA Brides of Anansi: Fiber and Contemporary Art, Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, Georgia, USA ARENA (Screenings), Centre for Contemporary Art, Torun, Poland Matter as Metaphor, Art Dubai 2014, Dubai, UAE, with Omenka Gallery, Lagos, Nigeria 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair, with October Gallery, London, UK
2013		Matter as Metaphor, Omenka Gallery at The FNB Joburg Art Fair, Johannesburg, South Africa (with the artist, Nnenna Okore) Ashe to Amen, Museum of Biblical Art, New York, USA, touring to The Reginald F. Lewis Museum and Dixon Gardens Reloading the Canon: African Traditions in Contemporary Art, James E. Lewis Museum, Maryland, USA
2011		The African Continuum, The United Nations, Public Gallery, New York, USA All We Ever Wanted, Center for Contemporary Art, Lagos, Nigeria
2010		The Global Africa Project, Museum of Arts and Design, New York, USA OUTSIGHT INN: 28 Solo Projects, Rupert Ravens Contemporary, New Jersey, USA Life After Death (A Tribute to Fela Kuti), Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute, New York, USA Dreamtime Overtones from a Fantastic Brown Planet, Aljira: Center for Contemporary Art, New Jersey, USA
2009		Brick City: 07101, The Visual Arts Center of New Jersey, Summit, New Jersey, USA Masquerade: False Faces, Casa Frela Gallery, New York, USA The Big Apple Meets the Big Easy, GSL Art Projects, New Orleans, USA Time & Space, A Gathering of the Tribes Gallery, New York, USA
2008		Afusion, Rotunda Gallery at The Brennan Courthouse, New Jersey, USA
2007		Waging Peace, Arts for Peace Gallery, New York, USA
2005		Boundaries, Philosophy Box Gallery, New York, USA

Collections

The Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, NY, USA
The Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY, United States
The Newark Museum, Newark, NJ, USA
National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC, USA
Credit Suisse Bank

Awards & Residencies

Blue Mountain Center Artist-in-Residence – 2017 (Awarded)
CultureSummit2017, Abu Dhabi, UAE - Panelist, 2017
Joan Mitchell Painters and Sculptors Grant, 2016
Foreign Policy’s Leading 100 Global Thinkers Award, USA, 2015
Maboneng Arts District Residency, Johannesburg, South Africa, 2015
Serenbe Artists-In-Residence Program, Georgia, USA, 2014
Fulbright U.S. Student Fellowship, Lagos, Nigeria, 2013-14
Gallery Aferro Artist-In-Residence Program, Newark, New Jersey, USA, 2013-14
MICA, Rinehart School of Sculpture, Amalie Rothschild Award, USA, 2013
MICA, William M. Phillips Memorial Scholarship/Best Figurative Sculpture, USA, 2012

ADEJOKE TUGBIYELE

CAREER HIGHLIGHTS

SELECTED WORKS

ADEJOKE TUGBIYELE

OCTOBER GALLERY ARTISTS