Adebunmi Gbadebo
Adebunmi Gbadebo (b. 1992) is a visual artist based in Newark. She makes sculptures, paintings, and prints using human hair sources from people of the African diaspora. Her choice of the material relates directly to the themes of identity and the history of the African diaspora, as well as to engage the community as part of her practice. She states “My material is Us; our bodies, our DNA.”
Gbadebo received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the School of Visual Arts, New York. Her recent exhibitions include the New Jersey City University, the Claire Oliver Gallery, and the Paul Robeson Gallery at Rutgers University, Newark. Gbadebo has taken part in numerous group exhibitions since 2013 and her work is included in the collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, the Minnesota Museum of American Art, and the Newark Museum of Art. Her work is currently represented by Claire Oliver Gallery, Harlem, New York.
About her work in WOV II:
Indigo, the extremely valuable and desired dye is closely linked with the African slave trade. This is both because slaves worked in plantations in the 1700s in the American south, and because indigo was used as currency - according to the author Catherine E. McKinley, a length of cloth was enough to exchange for one human body. With “Production I” (2020), Gbadebo investigates the complexities around this material and the histories of oppression that its use represents.
The details of the work showcased in the book serve to highlight the materiality of the work, particularly the use of human hair and cotton. The hair is mixed with blue pigment and illustrations of indigo plantations, as well as some instructions on how to grow and cut the plant.
You can learn more about her at adebunmi.carbonmade.com