Adejoke Tugbiyele
Courtesy the Artist and The Melrose Gallery.
Adejoke Tugbiyele’s sculpture Destiny’s Child is an object about transformation: an idea conveyed both in its abstract form and through its abundant cultural associations. A muscular gesture in space, it consists of a multitude of slender palm stems joined together to create strength. It is made principally from grass brooms, or umchayelo, which are often used in a traditional ritual context. Here, this potent material is additionally charged with symbolism, suggestive of a great wind of change. Tugbiyele has spoken of palm stems as carrying “a social and political charge (and currency) related to the multiplicity of its uses over millennia: spiritual, medicinal, industrial, and cultural.
This is true across many parts of Africa and important as we discourse around the historic relationship between Africa and the West.” Even the title that she has chosen for the work is multivalent: the phrase Destiny’s Child could refer to pop music (the group that made Beyoncé famous), to Tugbiyele’s own spiritual and artistic path, or to the philosophical precondition of life itself. This convergence is typical of her cross-cultural practice, which encompasses performance art as well as sculpture and design.
Destiny’s Child sculpture in grass brooms (umchayelo), church sticks, black paint and resin. Designed and made by Adejoke Tugbiyele, USA, 2019.
70.87" L x 30.71" W x 25.98" H
180cm L x 78cm W x 66cm H
SP1369
Courtesy of The Melrose Gallery