Esiri Erheriene-Essi

Esiri Erheriene-Essi (b. 1982) is an Amsterdam-based artist, originally born in London to Nigerian parents. Inspired by artists such as Kerry James Marshall, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Lucian Freud, Alice Neel and Jean-Michel Basquiat, she creates colorful mid to large-scale figurative paintings portraying family and friends in everyday situations, incorporating familial and historical backgrounds as well as personal experiences. An important part of her work process consists of collecting photographs, fabrics and other archival documentation relating to the African diaspora to incorporate into her artworks. Starting from a found, vintage photograph, she then edits it in photoshop and makes a sketch with...

An important part of her work process consists of collecting photographs, fabrics and other archival documentation relating to the African diaspora to incorporate into her artworks. Starting from a found, vintage photograph, she then edits it in photoshop and makes a sketch with acrylic ink juxtaposing colorful fabric patterns against magazine cut-outs and other paper collage elements.

The figures on the canvases represent individuals from the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, chronicling Black experiences by exploring untold, often forgotten and even neglected narratives of people of the African diaspora. We can see her paintings as speculative history writing, collaging the past and the present with potentialities, acknowledging just how fragmented and circumstantial history is.

Through her distinctive brushstrokes, Erheriene-Essi attempts to change our reading of history by re-imagining more humane and liberating narratives. The scenes that the artist enhances are pulled out of everyday life, such as afternoon outings, dinners, and birthday gatherings. Through her vivid work, the artist reflects on the inherent bias and racism within the film technology of the 1950s and ‘60s that made it almost impossible to capture the nuances of Black skin tones due to it being created with only the best representation of white skin in mind. She explores the wealth that she finds in the quiet histories within the source material and uses a vast range of color in her paintings as a way to make up for what was denied.

Erheriene-Essi’s paintings make socio-political comments in a subtle way, with some explicit references to these themes. In the background of some of her works, posters of Angela Davis and Malcolm X are hanging on the wall and some of the figures wear badges in support of the Poor People’s Campaign. Erheriene-Essi is committed to making visible the richness of Black lives and her canvases are an inventory of everyday stories and ordinary moments. Through the selecting, deconstructing and reformulating of the source photographs through painting, she hopes to create a familiar present were some recognition of sorts can take place, leaving ample space for elaboration and new readings. Erheriene-Essi would like people to look at her paintings as a place to interact with history and imagine futures at the same time.

In 2007 she attended the international residency program De Ateliers in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. In 2009 she was the winner of the esteemed Dutch Royal Award of Painting (Royal Palace, Amsterdam). In 2014 she had her first museum solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, Arnhem, the Netherlands. And in 2019, Erheriene-Essi was nominated for the Prix De Rome, one of the Netherlands’ most prestigious art awards, giving her the opportunity to create a series of works that was exhibited in the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.