September 12, 2024 |
At just 23 years old, Nigerian-born Olaolu Akeredolu-Ale AKA Slawn opens his first major solo art show today (September 12) at Saatchi Yates in London’s swanky St James. I present to you: Slawn. Fancy a slice?
‘1000 canvases’ is a composite of his spontaneous acrylic and spray-painted signature faces in primary colours bleeding into each other, repeated the length of an entire wall, comprising 1000 individual 29.7 x 21cm sections, available to purchase at £1000 each from 6pm via the gallery’s new online shop.
Surveying other work from the show, I’m drawn to ‘Ben.’ “He’s a very, very important Nigerian painter and sculptor. I learnt about him in secondary school and made my own kind of interpretation,” says Slawn. He’s referencing Ben Enwonwu’s masterpiece ‘Tutu,’ which became a symbol of reconciliation after Nigeria’s Biafra conflict and depicts the Ife princess Adetutu Ademiluyi. Slawn’s take is loaded with majesty given the subject’s poise and saturation of blue.
With most of his figures displaying downturned mouths, I ask him why the female figure in ‘First Kiss’ is smiling. “The thing that comes from a kiss is love, so it’s a happy feeling. The thing with most of my paintings is that they’re not very happy, they’re more direct and very much inspired by clowns. I see myself as a jester. I’ve got jester tattoos all over me and I just feel like the jester is very important to any situation,” the artist explains. Cutting the tension? “Yes, I feel like even if I was a King of a country, I’d still be a jester, so if anyone came to see who reigned on my land, they wouldn’t be looking for a jester, they’d be looking for a king. People can think I’m stupid, they can think I’m smart. I like being seen as non-threatening, but even if I was a threat, I don’t want you to know what is going to hit you when it’s going to hit you. I’m here to stay.”
I tell him my favourite new work is baseball-capped ‘Little Slawn.’ “It’s inspired by me. When I was younger I had really terrible asthma, so it was very restricting for me to do things. I wanted to play football. I feel that the main thing for me is that I had to wear two T-shirts every time. My mum would get me loads of white T-shirts that I would wear under my top, which was very frustrating for me, it was to sort of secure your chest. It was annoying that I had to wear these T-shirts all the time; that’s why he’s sad in the painting because he can see the white coming out [at his neckline].”
‘OKKK’ features his abstract take on the Ku Klux Klan. “It’s a conversation. When you explain something to someone, and they go, ‘OK.’ The conversation’s not about the hooded members, it’s more about how it’s not very pleasant imagery for the conversation it’s meant to be. I want my paintings to be very straightforward, simple, easy to interpret, but the conversation that could be had from it, is… I just feel I want to be an icebreaker for a lot of people. You walk into someone’s house, you see that and you ‘hmmm,’ but now you can have a lengthy conversation about something new.”
In transitioning to a commercial gallery, he says: “I’ve planned this for a long, long time, trying to insert myself into this game because the kind of art I do is not usually seen as art, but even people who graff are like this isn’t graffiti, people who make art are like this isn’t art, so I have a very weird place that I’m meant to be in, but it’s nice for me because I’d rather be one fish in a pond, a beautiful fish in one pond than be in a pond in seawater and being categorised.”
Does it feel like a movement, you and your peers coming to the fore? “Definitely something’s happening. There’s no word for it though, I don’t why it is, but it’s every ten years or so, and I’m just happy to be part of it. You feel an energy. Definitely, seeing my friends who own brands that are really big now, or my friends that have podcasts or who’re fucking streaming bigger than rappers now, which is surprising, but not surprising as in I feel like everything’s changing.”
Just before I leave his studio, he asks “Is your hat KAWS?” As I skip back down Caledonian Road amped at how Slawn respects no creative boundaries and is 100 per cent authentic, it dawns on me that my cap may be older than him. Regardless, he’s only just heating up, and this latest body of new work is electrifying.
Slawn at Saatchi Yates runs until October 20 2024 at 14 Bury Street, SW1Y 6AL.
Photography courtesy of Saatchi Yates.
