AWITA X JW ANDERSON

YOU’RE MY SWEETIE, MY SUGAR

Sola Olulode curated by Alayo Akinkugbe

22nd November - 2nd December | Install Photography

Alayo Akinkugbe presents “You’re My Sweetie, My Sugar” at the JW Anderson Soho Store. Immediately, the parallels between Soho and the scenes in the work of contemporary British-Nigerian artist Sola Olulode are evident. Olulode’s bio explains: ‘Her utopian scenes celebrate relationships that transcend crude notions of queer sexuality, her figures exemplify the warm embrace of queer love, a temporal space to bathe in memories of intimacies abundant with scenes of profoundly deep tender connections.’ Sola Olulode’s works, created primarily with limited palettes of blue and/or yellow, have an emphasis on love and its various physical manifestations, exuding a sense of tenderness, warmth and joy.

Sola Olulode’s work has a strong link to fashion and textiles. Her paintings in blue are either physically on indigo adirè fabric or are inspired by its colours. Adirè is an indigo-dyed cloth made in southwestern Nigeria by Yoruba women and is used ubiquitously for clothing in Nigeria. The tradition of indigo dyeing is centuries old in West Africa, with the earliest example being from the Dogon Kingdom in 11th Mali. In Nigeria, adirè is historically designed and dyed by female practitioners, and Olulode herself has learnt the method of dying used to create adirè, and often incorporates her own dyed fabric into her works.

The title of the exhibition, ‘You’re my sweetie, my sugar’ is a lyric from thepopular party song ‘Let Me Love You’ (1979) by Sierra Leonian singer Bunny Mack. The song remains popular across West Africa, the Caribbean and their diaspora communities. ‘You’re my sweetie, my sugar’ is a phrase that, to the many who know it, cannot not be sung out loud.

Filmed Spotlight of Sola and Alayo by Katy Wickremesinghe is available here.

Full written transcript is below:

Katy:  Hi, I'm Katy Wickremesinghe Founder of The Wick and I'm excited to be here on behalf of the Association of Women in the Arts. We're here at the southwest London studio of British Nigerian artists Sola Olulode. We're here ahead of her install “ You're My Sweetie, My Sugar” at the JW Anderson flagship store curated by Alayo Akinkugbe. So we're here at Studio Voltaire Sola Olulode's studio space. Let's take a look inside and see what we find.

Olulode brings to life experiences of black identity, womanhood, and non binary people alongside queer sexuality, highlighting tender connection and deep intimacy. In the last couple of years, Olulode's work has shot into the spotlight with shows at multiple galleries and fairs. From Lisson, Carl Friedman, Bernsen Bhattacharjee, and one 1-54 all showing her works.

So Sola, it's so exciting to visit you ahead of your new exhibition opening. And I wanted to really start at the beginning, we're obviously in this incredible space, you've created a huge amount of work, you've had some blockbuster shows and group exhibitions across the world. But I wonder if you could start at the beginning, where did your artistic journey begin? And where did your influences come from?

Sola: I actually find this really interesting question because I never actually think of a beginning point because I've always liked from a really, really young age, just been interested in art, and drawing and painting. Like from a toddler, I guess my mom talks about me just always wanting to, like that was my focus in terms of play. Yeah, it has always just been drawing, drawing. And then in school, it was like my favourite subject, but just kind of naturally gravitated towards it. So I have just always drawn and then yes, went into studying. Yeah. And then when I graduated, I was just like, I guess, privileged enough that I could continue in my art practise.

Katy: You have really gathered a lot of widespread critical acclaim because I think you're obviously giving dialogues to lots of diverse groups and different conversations, and maybe voices that have, you know, up until recently, perhaps being covered or not being championed as much as they should. So obviously, two themes within your work are the black experience and queer experience. And I wanted to ask you about the Bed Series really, and sort of where that inspiration came from, and how that has evolved and developed through your work.

Sola:  I wanted to look at politics, but I’m not someone who campaigns or is a politician. Representation, and having black and queer representation in my artwork is my little way of being political, in my pieces, so I just like people to be able to look at the work and recognise that these identities are not often seen in the art world. And, you know, we exist, and we're here. So that's kind of what I think about when I kind of consciously made the decision to only work currently with black women and non binary figures.

Katy:  And how often I mean, obviously, you'll be asked this many a time, but do you find you use your own personal storytelling within the works that you create?

Sola: Yeh I think that's also a reason why I focus on those identities in the work because that is me. And that's where the work has come from, I can give them making narratives and stories that aren't necessarily autobiography or I can only write about things that I have experienced and things that I witnessed. And so it has to come from my personal experience, or from the experiences that I witness or from my friends, family, things like that.

Katy: So I'm excited to be here with Sola, and curator Alayo Akinkugbe. Hopefully saying that correctly. And Alayo is part of the reason that we're here today ahead of the JW Anderson exhibition, opening on the 24th of November. So Alayo, I'd love to speak to you about how you came up with the idea of the exhibition, and also how you and and Sola met.

Alayo:  So it's kind of like a chicken and egg because when AWITA put forward this idea of curators pitching shows at JW Anderson, first of all, they had wanted us to create something that could respond to the shop and to fashion and also to the environment of Soho. And I was familiar with Sola's work already and I loved it, and I just could picture it there like the blue, the JW Anderson logo being blue and red, and also the fact that she worked with Adire. And I remember my proposal I wrote about the history and the culture of Adire. And it's a very sort of present material in my life. I'm Nigerian, like, Sola. I grew up in Nigeria, and even my school skirts were Adire, my grandmother would always give me Adire fabric, and I would see loads of people wearing it. So I was like, okay, if we're gonna do an exhibition that links fashion, and Sola’s work it is the perfect in between. I love that she was able to fuse this, this textile tradition was such a rich history and fashion with her sort of paintings and visual art. And we met on Zoom.

Sola:  The way you understood and connected with my work was just kind of like, Yes, I absolutely do want to get involved in this exhibition.

Katy:  “You're My Sweetie, My Sugar”. I love this title for an exhibition. How did you come up with it?

Alayo: So a lot of Sola’s work focuses on intimacy and love. And I remember trying to come up with something that hadn't already been used because I noticed all of your exhibition titles already had these like incredible titles that focused on love. And so I was like, literally lying in my bed, looking at your bed paintings and thinking of song lyrics. And this one came to mind "You're my sweetie, my sugar" and it's from a song by Sierra Leonean singer called Bunny Mac, which is really always been present in my life, I would say in the lives of lots of people who live in the African diaspora. And it's one of those if you see that lyric, and you know that song, you can't not sing it out loud. And it just seemed to really fit in with Sola’s work. And she liked the title. So it was like, I was a bit like, it's a bit cringe. But that's the whole point, the cheesiness and the intimacy, and yeah, the love that it evokes, and I just thought it suited her works perfectly. So hopefully, we'll have some music as well.

Sola:  Yeah, so we're working on a playlist.

Katy:  Obviously, in terms of curatorially, there's been a real shift that we've seen, I don't think it's been post lockdown. I think it's really been happening kind of over the last decade of this interaction between art and fashion, and other creative disciplines. And Sola, how have you experienced that? And is that something you'd like to explore?

Sola:  Actually, I would really, really love to work with a designer, I think it'd be interesting to actually design my own Adire like cloth, and actually, you know, have elements of the figures and the kind of like kissing scenes and things like that, and produce a print. That would be a kind of dream of mine to work with a designer to then design a series of dresses.

Katy:  Firstly, I think to me, what is so special about Sola's work is that it actually elevates beyond any segregated groups and actually becomes a preoccupation with humaneness and human connectedness, which I think is, in a time when a lot of art is looking at fracture and broken things. It's actually celebrating how we kind of create human fusion and love and joy, which is so refreshing at this time. And I know your work has been really well received on a widespread level, you've got a show currently in New York. Where's that? 

Sola:  Yeah, that's a far contemporary in Tribeca. I was recently over in New York, for the opening in store., I really love sharing my work with as many audiences as possible. So this is my first time exhibiting paintings and my first solo show. So I'm really pleased with that.

Katy: And it's been well received?

Sola: Yeah, when I was over there, like, it was amazing to kind of hear similar things that people say about my work over here and over there. I can resonate with audiences all over the world.

Katy:  And obviously, the themes that you talk about in your work are provocative. And you recently had an exhibition in Nigeria, in Lagos as well. How did that go?

Sola:  That was actually really, really nice for me because it was actually my first time visiting Nigeria and Lagos like, I always asked my family to take me back, but they always are just too involved with family drama, you never want to go back. So being able to return to Nigeria, through the arts, was really a special moment for me and especially as the audience could relate to the work on with an immediate understanding. A lot of times people look at my work and they can't see how it's made. And they don't get the references of textiles. But I found in the gallery that people could be like ah it's Adire 

Katy:  Oh, immediate familiarity with the techniques that you're using.

Sola: Yeah so yeah, that was a wonderful experience.

Katy: Well, your work has obviously taken on a journey and life of its own in the last few years. It's understandably being received really well on so many levels. And so what's next for you?

Sola:  Hopefully, more international shows actually, that's kind of been my focus. The last year I've just kind of done so many exhibitions in London. I'm really proud of that. I would like to explore more of the UK and take my work up North as well because, you know, my mum was also from Yorkshire and would love to do exhibitions in Yorkshire, and things like that, but just like globally, like, I guess I have like big dreams of doing public art commissions and things like that. Also, I guess that's another way of me sharing my work with a different audience who might not come into traditional gallery spaces. Just like having artwork out there on the street, I think is a much better way to engage with people.

Katy: Definitely. Thank you so much for your time and for having us today. It's been a real treat to explore more of your work.

Sola: Thank you for having me.

Katy: Sola Olulode, "You're my sweetie. My sugar" is going to be at JW Anderson from the 24th of November in collaboration with The Association of Women in the Arts. Thank you for watching.