Adejoke Tugbiyele

In work ranging from subtle to unflinching, Adejoke Tugbiyele explores LGBTQ human rights issues around the world, and her own identity as a queer woman of Nigerian descent. For her, art and activism are inextricably linked. As she describes, “Activism helps me stay in touch with the issues and ideas I respond to in my work. My work in turn educates and empowers others in the LGBT movement in Nigeria and beyond. Both depend on each other.” In her earlier work, Tugbiyele focused on Nigerian female identity. Though she is now recognized for tackling LGBTQ concerns in her sculptures, textiles, mixed media paintings, drawings, and videos, it was not until 2012 that she felt comfortable enough with her own sexuality to embrace such subjects. She has done this in, for example, expressive sculptures of figures marginalized by society because of their sexuality.