Esther Adesigbin London, United Kingdom

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Esther Adesigbin is an artist and passionate advocate of community art engagement, she believes sharing tools for creative expression empowers lifelong freedom of thought. ‘I believe that the power of creative discovery, play, and material making is key to unpacking individual thoughts and experience, that this encourages an understanding of our humanity, and furthers a positive future legacy.'

Glass is my primary material of creative expression, a medium I fell in love with after completing a degree in painting. Glass has the quality to produce a deeper optical experience, to create space ‘beyond' the surface of an art work. I investigate and alter sheet glass using printing, sand blasting, and slumping techniques.

A recurrent theme in my work is looking beyond the surface, working in glass and paper sandblasting continuous repeating lines of handwritten text to create abstract filigrees of words. In this way I attempt to use repeated movement and empty space to generate intangibility in my work.

My aim is to explore a shifting experience of selfhood, some of my work is a reflection on the experience of being African heritage of having perceptions of my ‘identity’ change depending on the social context in which my skin colour is viewed. I use my work to express the impacts of being racialised and communicate my response through expressing these changing states of being.

As an artist and art educator, I believe in the importance of exploring the physical aspects of a material as a point of departure for exploration self expression, that moments of 'magic' of self discovery and new awareness are key to communicating from the 'inside out'.

My education work with the October Gallery, and increasing knowledge of the international artists they exhibit, has strengthened my belief that all materials are art materials. I happily rest in the space between applied art, crafts, and Western definitions of fine art practice.

My current work is grounded in drawings made from the spiritual art of Ife and Benin, shifting personal narratives, and the processing and communication of the Black Curriculum 365.

365 is a mixed body of mixed media work seeking to address the deep colonial roots of racism, an attempt to communicate ideas around identity and humanity on an individual and wider social level.