Nadine Ijewere has just opened her debut solo exhibition at C/O Berlin. Entitled ‘Nadine Ijewere . Beautiful Disruption’, it explores her practice across art and fashion that both celebrates diverse and under-represented beauty, and her own Nigerian-Jamaican identity. “I’ve always been interested in all ethnic backgrounds and not just the certain look model agents tend to choose. Everyone is beautiful in their own way,” she asserts.

The south London-born artist studied photography at the London College of Fashion and since then has been steadfast in her approach to finding her own visual language. “Growing up I always tried to fit in but once I got to university I had the freedom to be myself and start drawing on my culture, which has become a recurring theme in my work,” she adds. One of her early series, ‘Same//Different’, revealing the bond between siblings, was exhibited at Tate Britain. Since then, she’s shown at Unseen Amsterdam and LagosPhoto as well as with Nataal at Brooklyn’s Red Hook Labs.

Ijewere’s gentle, romantic and empowering gaze has gone on to become highly sought after by titles such as i-D, Garage and British Vogue, for which she was the first woman of colour to shoot a cover in 2019 with Dua Lipa, Binx Walton and Letitia Wright in front of the lens. She’s also worked with several brands including Dior, Stella McCartney, Farfetch and Hermès and in 2020 she was the recipient of the Infinity Award by the International Center for Photography in NYC.

Here, Ijewere selects four series from the exhibition and tells Nataal why they are so dear to her heart.

Wall Street Journal Magazine, 2020

“This story, entitled Kith & Kin, means a lot to me as it was shot just after the first lockdown. The pandemic has meant so much social isolation and most of us spending most of our time with one household. These relationships remain precious, so this story was about documenting those relationships, whether it was family or friends who ended up in the same social bubble.”

Nina Ricci, SS20

“This was shot in the Dominican Republic for Nina Ricci and has been one of my favourite advertising shoots to work on because the project was all about celebrating the beauty of Dominican women. The creative director is from there and so we shot in her home town. There are so many beautiful women there that it was such a wonderful experience to highlight them and their identity.”

Tallawah, 2020

“These images are from a personal project of mine, Tallawah, which I collaborated on with hairstylist Jawara Wauchope. We both have Jamaican heritage so we wanted to explore Jamaicans’ relationship with hair and beauty. This series of images celebrate their identities and approaches to beauty and goes against the negative connotations that have stemmed from the media throughout history.”

Vogue UA, 2019

“This shoot is one that always comes to my mind. I wanted to present the concept of haute couture in a different way to the one usually presented, which has the same environment and very stereotypical beauty ideal. Growing up I never really saw couture on black women and so it was a chance to show that couture is something that can be portrayed beautifully in this way.”

Nadine Ijewere . Beautiful Disruption is on view at C/O Berlin until 2 September 2021

Read Nataal’s full story on Tallawah here.
See Nadine Ijewere’s cover story for Nataal issue 2 here.
See Nadine Ijewere’s series on Nigerian Youth for Nataal: New African Photography II here.

Words Helen Jennings

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Published on 02/06/2021