Bunmi Agusto

Bunmi Agusto (b. 1999, Lagos) is a visual artist whose practice explores psychology, cultural theory and the evolution of selfhood through the lens of fantasy. Through highly detailed and fantastical pieces, her works combine drawing, painting, and printmaking as they tell the stories of the inhabitants of a surrealist wonderland in her mind called “The Within”. The indigenous inhabitants of this psycho-surreal world are hybrids whose human form is combined with elements she finds integral to her sense of self and cultural consciousness. Human family members, friends and passersby are also present in “The Within” as cross-reality migrants who were subsumed into the world after encountering the artist in her waking life. Combining geometric compositions inspired by West African aesthetics with uncanny landscapes and anonymous figures, the scenes Agusto creates rely equally upon her memory and her imagination.

Agusto earned a BA in Fine Art from Central Saint Martins, an MA in History of Art and Archaeology from SOAS University (2022) and an MFA from the Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford (2023).

Selected solo exhibitions include ‘Outside’, kó, Lagos (2022); 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair, DADA Gallery, London (2022); ‘Psychoscape’, TAFETA, London (2022); ‘Kenneth Ize SS22’, Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2021); ‘Escape To Within’, DADA Gallery, London (2021).

Her work has been featured in group exhibitions at Camden Arts Centre, London (2024); Stephen Friedman Gallery, London (2023), Grundy Art Gallery, Blackpool (2023); Foreign Agent, Lausanne (2023); DADA Gallery, Lagos (2023); Vortic Curated, London & Santa Monica Art Museum, Los Angeles (2023); The Bomb Factory, London (2022); V.O Curations, London (2022); 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair (2021); Christie’s, London (2021); TAFETA, London (2021); Harbour Point, Lagos (2019); Copeland Gallery, London (2019); Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, London (2019); The Koppel Project, London (2019).

Augusto was twice awarded the Cass Art Prize (2020) and her works are held in collections including Samdani Art Foundation, Bangladesh; Mansfield College, University of Oxford, Oxford; Coronation Gallery, Lagos amongst others. Her work has been featured in DADA Magazine, Boy.Brother.Friend, The Financial Times and Another Magazine.