Fadekemi Ogunsanya (b. 1995) is a multi-disciplinary Nigerian artist based in the UK. She paints cathartic emotional landscapes, scenes concerned with the ineffable questions of love, joy, suffering, and loss. Having grown up within a patriarchal Yoruba family structure, Ogunsanya exposes another side to this world. Her work carries a complex awareness of womanhood and the covert power of female alliances within such traditional structures. Infused with mythological references– indigo, a colour steeped in cosmic significance within Yoruba culture, animates this world. Ogunsanya’s subjects exude a quiet confidence and exist somewhere between portraits and imagination, a collection of faces and spirits intertwined, sharing profound bonds of mutual reinforcement. 

Ogunsanya explores unconventional avenues of presentation, which depart from the conventions of the white cube. As a trained architect, her paintings extend beyond the two dimensional and into objects in and of themselves: she designs and creates  hand-painted, laser-cut, wooden frames that hold each painting and allow them to straddle the space between image and object.

Ogunsanya received her Masters from the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London. Recent solo exhibitions include Nina Johnson, Miami, USA (2023); Easy Remedies For A Tired Heart, FF Projects, London, UK (2023); Sweet Joy, Sweet Suffering, Lagos, Nigeria (2021). In 2022, she took part in group shows at Stevenson Gallery in Cape Town, Ben Brown Fine Arts in Hong Kong and London, and Frieze Cork Street, London. 

She was nominated for the 2024 Norval Sovereign African Art Prize.