Vigil (Young Mourners)
acrylic and found materials, wood, pen caps, eroded plastic fragments, copper wire, and other miscellaneous objects
Spotlight Artist
S. Yemisi Adeyemo
MFA Annual
Ten Pairs of Burning Eyes
acrylic, acrylic paint skin, and found materials, crushed plastic bottles, wire, wood fragment, cardboard, anils, and rusted rubber
Young Pioneers (Centre Thomas Sankara pour la Libération et L’unité Africaine)
acrylic and found materials, metal, plastic, fabric, car parts, wooden chair, rubber stamps, tile, and other miscellaneous objects
Artist Statement
S. Yemisi Adeyemo is an interdisciplinary artist working at the intersection of assemblage, painting, and sculpture. She draws from the visual languages of Afro-diasporic traditions, folk and ritual objects, shanty structures, makeshift and make-do tactics, Black feminist thought, and the history of painting to create devotional and disobedient objects.
S. Yemisi Adeyemo received a BFA in Painting from the Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA in Visual Art from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University. Adeyemo was a 2025-2026 NXTHVN Studio Art Fellow and a 2021 BRIClab Contemporary Arts Resident. She has been featured in publications such as Hyperallergic, Liverpool University's Sculpture Journal, Art Cube, and Forbes, where she was recognized on the Forbes 30 Under 30 Art & Style list. She was a 2023 recipient of The Real Art Award and a 2021 finalist of the Bennett Prize for Women Figurative Realist Painters.
Artist's Additional works
Works shared by the artist outside of their featured New American Paintings selections
The Lie-In (Altar at 202 Bay St, Staten Island, NY) - 2026Acrylic and found materials (wood, plastic, metal, tree branch, the artist’s hair, bungee cord, fabric, wire, combs, CD’s, ceramic, glass, wall charger, twine, leather, beads, other miscellaneous objects)
Absolution Vessel - 2004Acrylic and found materials (wood, seashells, reflective shards, animal skull, combination lock dial, gauze, ceramic, plastic fork, puzzle piece, poker chip, metal, key and other miscellaneous objects)
Boot on the Neck of the River (The Last Martyr is the Water) - 2025Acrylic and found materials (wood, metal, glass, paper clip, plastic, bottle cap, mirror shards, seashells, broken padlock, pocket knife, string, key, and other miscellaneous objects)
Asylum Seekers (Poorest Path from the Richest Earth) - 1988Acrylic and found materials (metal, rope, ceramic, plastic, wire, thread, hair, ribbon, twine, fabric, wired headphones, seatbelt buckle, plastic spoon, keys, zipper, mirror shards, soil)
Mubarak’s Blue Hands (Sulala Animal Rescue) - 2011Acrylic and found materials (wood, plastic, metal, glass, ceramic, bottle caps, poker chip, spoon, seashell, key)
Repatriation of the Panguna Mine (28 Years After the Revolution) - 1989Acrylic and found materials (metal, ceramic, plastic, and copper sheets from lithium-ion batteries)
Resistance Talisman - 2004Acrylic and found materials (plastic, paper, bottle cap, string, metal washer, glass shard, blue curling ribbon, and other miscellaneous objects)
Untitled (Migrant Study) - 2026Acrylic and found materials (wood, plastic, glass)
Resume
Education
- BFA, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI, US
- MFA, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, US
Residencies
- Studio Art Fellow, NXTHVN, New Haven, CT, US
- BRIClab Contemporary Art Resident, BRIC, Brooklyn, NY, US
Solo Exhibitions
- Earth & Iron: Archival Visions, BRIC, Brooklyn, NY, US
- Common Property: Sun Washed Waste, Real Art Ways, Hartford, CT, US
Selected Group Exhibitions
- Material Conditions, Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York, NY, US
- Mad Black Phantasms, Picture Theory Gallery, New York, NY, US
- Femme F(r)iction, C1760 Gallery, New York, NY, US
- Rising Voices 2.0, Muskegon Museum of Art, Muskegon, MI, US
- Winner Takes All, Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York, NY, US
S. Yemisi Adeyemo was featured in these issues
183
MFA AnnualApr 2026
Claire Howard
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