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Gambit

Tireni Adeniji

Profile picture of Tireni Adeniji

Tireni Adeniji (b. 2004, London) is a painter and multidisciplinary artist of Nigerian heritage whose work explores heritage, identity, and liberation. Rooted in portraiture, her practice reflects on the experience of navigating the world as a young Black woman, examining how identity is shaped, represented, and contested in contemporary society. Combining technical precision with layered meaning, Tireni’s work creates space for dialogue around race, gender, and culture. Her paintings are both personal and political, inviting audiences to reflect on belonging, visibility, and the complexities of the human condition. 

Tireni Adeniji (b. 2004, London) is a painter and multidisciplinary artist of Nigerian heritage w...

“Gambit” (2025) by Tireni Adeniji explores the fragile yet sacred bond between Black mothers and their children, framed through Yoruba symbolism and the strategic structure of chess. Using oil paint and pastel on canvas, the work reflects on cultural inheritance, sacrifice, and survival within the diaspora. The crowned mother, embodying ancestral wisdom, and the child, carrying symbols of pawnhood and potential power, together highlight tensions between tradition and assimilation. Adeniji’s painting asks what is lost, protected, and transformed when identity itself becomes a strategic exchange in systems of power 

Final work

Painting of mother holding a baby with an afro pick in their hair. Mother has a Queen chess piece as a headpiece, painted in a traditional style

Gambit

close up of the mother in the painting. There are details of the earrings and necklace
Close up of the baby and background of the painting made up of blue and pink textured diamond shapes

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Gambit

“Gambit” (2025) by Tireni Adeniji explores the fragile yet sacred bond between Black mothers and their children, framed through Yoruba symbolism and the strategic structure of chess. Using oil paint and pastel on canvas, the work reflects on ...

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