Excitement was bubbling for Jamaican fine artist Teoni after she posted promotional imagery on her Instagram of her first solo exhibition. The queue wrapped around the entire Chocolate Studios building and down the street last Friday evening as Londoners eagerly waited to see the 24-year-old artist’s collection of paintings.
Residing in North West London, where she was raised and where she initially discovered her infatuation with painting, the fine artist’s work is abstract only in terms of the paint itself, as she delves into capturing the rawness of reality. She illustrates the stories of those closest to her through mediums such as oil paintings, life drawings, video art, and film photography.
In romanticizing everyday life and capturing what’s real, Teoni debuted her solo exhibition, Honey—“a reflection on the people I love”—which included fifteen paintings and one film curated by Fynn Studio. With conveying love at the top of her mind, this collection of her latest artworks is an all-encompassing illustration of her drive to showcase love and the lack of it, featuring the people she holds dearest.
Each wall of the space housed one of Teoni’s pieces. Upon entering, your eye is immediately drawn to the biggest artwork of the exhibition, Undeserved, featuring a nude woman in a room surrounded by vibrant paintings with the words “please help me forget him,” among others written on the canvas. A piece that journeyed across the sea to the French streets of Paris and back for the “A Friend Named Cousin” group exhibition, curated by Joe Fresh Goods this July, is “For Beau, from Oni”, a portrait of her close friend Olaolu Slawn and his son Beau. Bursting with bright hues of red and yellow, with Slawn and Beau as the focal points, this theme of central figures is a common focus in the artist’s work. The carefully curated array of portraits that make up the rest of the exhibit includes “Dave”, Adam & Eve”, and “N’Laix”, to name a few.
It’s easy to notice Teoni’s style leans to the bold, gravitating towards bright yellows and reds in all her artworks, yet each individual piece had its own unique story to tell.“Honey” was not just a showcase of Teoni’s artistic talent, but a deep, personal exploration of love, friendship, intimacy, and loneliness, all encapsulated beautifully into one space.
