Praise Sanni-Adeniyi: Between a Prayer and a Song

The title of Praise Sanni-Adeniyi’s solo exhibition is taken from a line in a poem written by the artist herself.

Assuming the form of a litany, the poem utilizes repetition as a distressed call forclarity, a clawing in supplication to the divine, becoming a point of departure forthis body of work. The figures in the paintings are not new to Sanni-Adeniyi’s oeuvre. This time, they reprise their role with fragmented and fluid postures. Inertia serves as a metaphorfor an ongoing state of uncertainty. Their eyes, weighed by rumination. Ambiguous interiors become emotional and psychological landscapes, often in flux.

These works explore the existential angst of coming of age, the complexities of placemaking, the tension between the tangible and intangible, and the aftershock of rumination on the body. With this work, the artist asks, What does it mean to exist and occupy space in these fraught times?

Between a Prayer and a Song is its own purgatory. A kind of oscillation. Awaiting. A negotiation. On one hand, a desperate meditation for clarity and on the other, a melancholy of hope and reprieve.

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