Joy Through Resistance: He Who Laughs Last, Laughs Best
Cristea Roberts

Joy Through Resistance: He Who Laughs Last, Laughs Best is Yinka Ilori's first solo exhibition. Drawing from the artist's cross-cultural upbringing, the exhibition explores community, resilience and the enduring capacity for joy in the face of hardship and enmity. Across a new body of prints, paintings, sculptures and sound, resonant colours, forms and materials shape joy into an apparatus for collective empowerment.

This interplay unfolds through floral motifs woven throughout the exhibition. In An Abundance of Flowers Blessed by Us, For Us, Ilori juxtaposes the daffodil and the yellow trumpet flower, national flowers of Britain and Nigeria respectively. Both bloom each spring abundantly and have long symbolised hope, vitality and resilience. Together, they reflect Ilori's British-Nigerian identity while evoking a form of human resilience in which joy continues to flourish, even when circumstances suggest otherwise.

As an introspective moment in the artist's practice, Joy Through Resistance also reflects on Ilori's formative years growing up in a Nigerian household, where textiles became a means of affirming and celebrating cultural identity. Ornamental Madras lace, recurring throughout the paintings and sculptures, recalls ceremonial dress and domestic presentation across Nigeria and its diaspora. Its delicacy and intricacy exist alongside the constant possibility of damage, echoing the experiences of diasporic communities navigating unfamiliar cultural landscapes with resilience and care.

The fragile materiality of lace sits in dialogue with the resonant pulse of brass and percussion. Pianos, drums and shekeres, enveloped in lace and beadwork, are positioned throughout the gallery alongside an immersive sound installation featuring original compositions by Peter Adjaye and James William Blades. Drawing on brass, percussion, Yoruba lullabies, church sounds and field recordings, the works extend the exhibition beyond the visual, exploring joy as something that emerges through persistence, community and shared experience.

The exhibition was supported by Beats and featured a creative exchange with Ezra Collective, extending the exhibition's exploration of joy, resilience and community through conversation and music.

Courtesy artist and Cristea Roberts Gallery, London © Yinka Ilori. Photo Sam Roberts.

Client
Cristea Roberts

Practice
Art