Artist Name: Artof Ajet
Primary Discipline: Visual Art

* Artist Statement
My work is inspired by the ways culture informs my identity and my gender expression. My personal culture is shaped by my experiences as a Yoruba woman and an African in diaspora, as well as by my research and my travels. My personal culture and experiences, my stories and histories, these things influence my choice of subject matter, style, techniques and materials. I make meaning of global and local cultural practices that affect me today, in the context of the past, the present and the possible futures. My creative practice challenges oppressions normalized as tradition, invites my audience to speculate on alternate realities, facilitates the exchange of culture, and prompts the remembrance of collective memories.

* Artist Biography
Olusayo Ajetunmobi, known professionally as Artof Ajet, is a multidisciplinary Yoruba artist. Her practice explores themes of migration, identity and equality. Every year Ajet collaborates with at least one NGO to create illustrations and graphic designs, advocating for social change. Notably creating a research-based infographic and a reimagined folktale for an art-book titled SEEN in 2023. The art-book was published by the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity, and launched at the Feminist Library, Peckham in 2024. This project inspired her body of work, titled "Girls just having fun"; a series of mixed media paintings, exploring the ways that beauty standards and invisible labour keep women from enjoying themselves. The production of these paintings was enhanced by a spring residency at Villa Karo, the Finnish-West African cultural exchange and research centre in Grand Popo.