Àsìkò

Photography

Àsìkò has been taking “visual notes” all his life, from his father’s collection of local Nigerian art to his formative trip to the Vatican city. This wide-ranging visual culture will later become the bedrock of his acute aesthetics. In 2005, while studying for his chemistry and pharmacy degree, Àsìkò bought his first camera and discovered in photography a fantastic diary-like tool.

Beyond his daily visual musings, in 2015, Àsìkò started to see photography as a tool to document his journey from Nigeria to England; depicting his experience with displacement and acculturation. Conversations with friends, souvenirs and dreams, became cues to generate new bodies of work. Àsìkò proposes a tale of the British Nigerian experience in London. While always centering the black body in his images, Àsìkò proceeds to hybridise both of these cultures through objects and ornaments.

If his images speak of our contemporary times, Àsìkò includes fragments of history in his compositions. As he states, he “looks back in order to look forward”. This frame of reference enables him to explore ideas around heritage, especially Yoruba folklore and elements of transnational cultures. Àsìkò finds inspiration in books on African spirituality and deities in ancestral tales. His portraits become guides into lesser-known parts of West African customs and myths. Photography becomes a way of researching, understanding, and sharing.

Àsìkò is unafraid to confront and challenge the legacies of patriarchy and gender inequality, and aspires to depict the complexity of womanhood including traumas, and vulnerability, but also strength and joy. He aims at creating codes for an empowered iconography of black men and women. More recently, in an attempt to explore ideas about masculinity, Àsìkò has been developing his practice of self-portraits. In a cinematic or theatrical way, Àsìkò uses his creative practice as a way of processing life’s challenges and helps him work through socio-political events.

Àsìkò’s work has been displayed in a variety of major institutions from the Gagosian – for the ‘Rites of Passage’ exhibition in Britannia Street, London – to the Venice Biennale. Through the artist’s unique hybridisation of African and European aesthetics in his practice, as well as his focus on capturing Yoruba culture in diaspora contexts, Àsìkò has created his own unique lens, which has subsequently made him become one of the most exciting and highly anticipated young artists in Britain today.

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Selected
artworks

Àsìkò

Gold Is Her Forever Color I , 2020

Aluminium dibond in black oak frame with passé-partout 66.7 x 46.7 cm (Edition of 4); 89 x 64.7 cm (Edition of 3); 122.7 x 84.5 cm (Edition of 3)
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Àsìkò

Gold Is Her Forever Colour II , 2020

Aluminium dibond in black oak frame with passé-partout 66.7 x 46.7 cm (Edition of 4); 89 x 64.7 cm (Edition of 3); 122.7 x 84.5 cm (Edition of 3)
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Àsìkò

Ero , 2015

Metallic print 51 x 41 cm (Edition of 3); 102 x 66 cm (Edition of 1)
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Àsìkò

In Recognition of Her Power , 2020

Aluminium dibond in black oak frame with passé-partout 46.7 x 66.7 cm (Edition of 4); 64.7 x 89 cm (Edition of 3); 84.5 x 122.7 cm (Edition of 3)
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Àsìkò

Constellations of Beauty , 2020

Aluminium dibond in black oak frame with passé-partout 66.7 x 46.7 cm (Edition of 4); 89 x 64.7 cm (Edition of 3); 122.7 x 84.5 cm (Edition of 3) Sold
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Àsìkò

Expectations in Hindsight , 2020

Aluminium dibond in black oak frame with passé-partout 66.7 x 46.7 cm (Edition of 4); 89 x 64.7 cm (Edition of 3); 122.7 x 84.5 cm (Edition of 3)
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Àsìkò

She is Embraced by the Sun , 2020

Aluminium dibond in black oak frame with passé-partout 66.7 x 46.7 cm (Edition of 4); 89 x 64.7 cm (Edition of 3) Sold; 122.7 x 84.5 cm (Edition of 3) Sold
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Àsìkò

Behind it All , 2020

Aluminium dibond in black oak frame with passé-partout 66.7 x 46.7 cm (Edition of 4); 89 x 64.7 cm (Edition of 3); 122.7 x 84.5 cm (Edition of 3)
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Àsìkò

She is Forged , 2021

Aluminium dibond in black oak frame with passé-partout 66.7 x 46.7 cm (Edition of 4); 89 x 64.7 cm (Edition of 3); 122.7 x 84.5 cm (Edition of 3)
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Àsìkò

Madonna , 2021

Aluminium dibond in black oak frame with passé-partout 66.7 x 46.7 cm (Edition of 4); 89 x 64.7 cm (Edition of 3) Sold; 122.7 x 84.5 cm (Edition of 3)
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Àsìkò

The Edo Women , 2020

Aluminium dibond in black oak frame with passé-partout 66.7 x 46.7 cm (Edition of 4); 89 x 64.7 cm (Edition of 3); 122.7 x 84.5 cm (Edition of 3)
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Àsìkò

Of Things in Life , 2020

Aluminium dibond in black oak frame with passé-partout 66.7 x 46.7 cm (Edition of 4); 89 x 64.7 cm (Edition of 3); 122.7 x 84.5 cm (Edition of 3)
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Àsìkò

Framed by Tapestry , 2020

Aluminium dibond in black oak frame with passé-partout 66.7 x 46.7 cm (Edition of 4); 89 x 64.7 cm (Edition of 3); 122.7 x 84.5 cm (Edition of 3)
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Àsìkò

Philosophies and Cosmologies , 2021

Aluminium dibond in black oak frame with passé-partout 66.7 x 46.7 cm (Edition of 4); 89 x 64.7 cm (Edition of 3); 122.7 x 84.5 cm (Edition of 3)
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Àsìkò

Adorned by the Heavens , 2021

Aluminium dibond in black oak frame with passé-partout 66.7 x 46.7 cm (Edition of 4); 89 x 64.7 cm (Edition of 3); 122.7 x 84.5 cm (Edition of 3)
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Àsìkò

Fertile Offerings , 2018

Metallic Print 83 x 56 cm (Edition of 3); 102 x 66 cm (Edition of 3)
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Àsìkò

Exhausting , 2018

Metallic Print 83 x 56 cm (Edition of 3); 102 x 66 cm (Edition of 3)
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Àsìkò

Masquerade Lies , 2018

Impression metalique 83 x 56 cm (Edition of 3); 102 x 66 cm (Edition of 3)
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Àsìkò

Stolen Identities , 2018

Metallic Print 83 x 56 cm (Edition of 3); 102 x 66 cm (Edition of 3)
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Àsìkò

Flambouyant Burdens , 2018

Metallic print 83 x 56 cm (Edition of 3); 102 x 66 cm (Edition of 3)
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Àsìkò

My Masculine , 2018

Metallic Print 83 x 56 cm (Edition of 3); 102 x 66 cm (Edition of 3) Edition 3 and 3
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Àsìkò

Suffocated Destinies , 2018

Metallic print 83 x 56 cm (Edition of 3) or 102 x 66 cm (Edition of 3)
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Àsìkò

Loosing Myself , 2018

Metallic Print 50 x 50 cm (Edition of 3); 75 x 75 cm (Edition of 3)
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Àsìkò

The Impact Of , 2018

Metallic Print 50 x 80 cm (Edition of 3); 67 x 100 cm (Edition of 3)
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Àsìkò

ọ̀rẹ́ mẹ́rin , 2018

Metallic print 76 x 51 cm or 102 x 66 cm Edition 3 and 2
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Àsìkò

Erin , 2018

Metallic print 76 x 51 cm (Edition of 3); 102 x 66 cm (Edition of 3)
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Àsìkò

ìjàpá , 2018

Metallic Print 76 x 51 cm (Edition of 3); 102 x 66 cm (Edition of 3)
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Àsìkò

ojú inú , 2018

Metallic print 76 x 51 cm (Edition of 3); 102 x 66 cm (Edition of 3)
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Àsìkò

àsírí aládìre , 2018

Metallic print 76 x 51 cm (Edition of 3); 102 x 66 cm (Edition of 3)
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Àsìkò

Olókun , 2018

Metallic Print 76 x 51 cm (Edition of 3); 102 x 66 cm (Edition of 3)
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Àsìkò

Ejọ́ , 2018

Metallic Print 76 x 51 cm (Edition of 3); 102 x 66 cm (Edition of 3)
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Àsìkò

olọ́ba , 2018

Metallic Print 76 x 51 cm (Edition of 3); 102 x 66 cm (Edition of 3)
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Àsìkò

Osèré , 2016

Metallic print 76 x 51 cm (Edition of 3)
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Àsìkò

olorin , 2016

Metallic Print 76 x 51 cm (Edition of 3)
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Àsìkò

fọkàn balẹ̀ , 2016

Metallic print 76 x 51 cm (Edition of 3)
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Àsìkò

Ako , 2016

Metallic print 76 x 51 cm (Edition of 3)
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Àsìkò

Abo , 2016

Metallic print 76 x 51 cm (Edition of 3)
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Àsìkò

Edo

Metallic print 46 x 30 cm (Edition of 3); 102 x 66 cm (Edition of 1)
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Àsìkò

Ibi , 2016

Metallic Print 76 x 51 cm (Edition 3)
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Àsìkò

Boju

Metallic print 30 x 46cm (Edition of 3); 66 x 102 cm (Edition of 1)
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Àsìkò

Igbòkun , 2016

Metallic print 89 x 58 cm (Edition of 3); 102 x 66 cm (Edition of 1)
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Àsìkò

Lẹ̀hìn

Metallic print 46 x 30 cm (Edition of 3); 102 x 66 cm (Sold) Edition of 2 and 1
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Àsìkò

Ijo

Metallic print 46 x 30 cm (Edition of 3); 102 x 66 cm (Edition of 1)
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Àsìkò

A Black Life , 2020

Metallic print 48 x 38 cm (Edition of 4); 102 x 81 cm (Edition of 3)
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Àsìkò

Gbe

Metallic print 46 x 30 (Edition of 3); 102 x 66 cm (Edition of 1)
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Àsìkò

Bound , 2020

Metallic Print 38 x 48 cm (Edition of 4); 81 x 102 cm (Edition of 3)
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Àsìkò

I Can’t Breathe , 2020

Metallic print 38 x 48 cm (Edition of 3); 102 x 81 cm (Edition of 1)
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Àsìkò

Ìsàlẹ̀ , 2015

Metallic print 46 x 30 (Edition of 3); 102 x 66 cm (Edition of 1)
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Àsìkò

Iye , 2015

Metallic print 46 x 30 (Edition of 3); 102 x 66 cm (Edition of 1)
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Àsìkò

Suppressive Stories , 2020

Bartya print 38 x 48 cm (Edition of 4); 81 x 102 cm (Edition of 3)
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Àsìkò

There will be an Uprising , 2020

Bartya print 38 x 48 cm (Edition of 4); 81 x 102 cm (Edition of 3)
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