Tolu Magbagbeola is a Nigerian-British self-taught visual artist. Working with painting, photography and sculpture, Magbagbeola is passionate about freedom of expression, exploring the subconscious through abstraction. The artist is particularly interested in the interplay between form and colour, the idea of psychic automation and how the subconscious mind plays a part in the creative process. Magbagbeola is also fascinated by science, particularly the idea of morphogenic resonance and understanding the space that exists between mind and matter.

With ‘A Wild Desire’ and ‘Newbirth’ Magbagbeola wishes to invite the viewer to be captured and engage with the works through their own imagination of what is being presented. In fact, the initial process of the artist is freed from any specific agenda or goal in mind. Rather, it is focused on the chromatic palette that ranges from deep, earthy tones to bright and highly pigmented colours. Magbagbeola allows her hand to be driven by these colour-choices that reflect her state of mind, following an intuitive approach that brings depth, nuance and a spiritual essence to each piece.

Produced in the midst of post-lockdown anxiety, which affected - and still affects - a significant part of the population, these two works reflect Magbagbeola’s attempts to translate the concept of Hysteria into the visual form. Starting from the subconscious, the artist pours deeply personal feelings onto the canvas: “The way I approached these paintings - and my production in general - it's by going into the subconscious where we're not fully aware of what we’re doing. The subconscious is where every thought, every action, everything is created before it's brought into the physical realm.” (Tolu Magbagbeola)