Olaolu Slawn & Reappropriating Anti-Black Imagery
You may have come to know Slawn by virtue of his rendition and interpretive design of the BRIT Award statuette in 2023; being the youngest designer to ever design the statuette. From working in a skate shop in Nigeria to pioneering his own streetwear brand Motherlan which gained recognition from the late Virgil Abloh, Slawn has always taken a very unconventional approach to his work. He began painting while at university in the UK during the pandemic. According to Slawn, he would hand out his paintings randomly to people at parties and was able to build a social media following from this.
Although not explicitly stated by the artist himself, it appears that Slawn experiments with mixed media, often times but not limited to combining oil paint and spray paint on a canvas. His work shows no constraint to a particular or limited paint palette or technique but remains persistent in reflecting the artists fluidity and authenticity. The corporate art world can easily interpret his work as a form of ‘neo-expressionism’ given that it centres around self-portraits, portraits of others like his son, Beau and at times an amalgamation of famous images. With that being said, I do believe that attempting to ‘define’ and ‘categorise’ his work in this way (using corporate art terminology) defeats the purpose of the artists true intentions.
“I just want to get to a place where people feel comfortable with stuff that’s taboo. If I can manipulate their mind into thinking it’s cool, then that’s cool. That’s what I’m trying to do.” — Olaolu Slawn
There is a real fascination in the subject content and medium that Slawn plays with. The artists distinct style is recognisable almost instantly with his cartoon-like, caricature-type paintings style and incorporation of graffiti art. The subjects within his paintings bear an uncanny resemblance to the Golliwog; a caricature intended to depict African American’s made during and after the abolishment of slavery. These depiction were created to reinforce racist propaganda and stereotypes of black people. The Golliwog is infamously known and recognised by the extreme and unnatural darkness of the skintone, having “exaggerated features” and “oversided lips”. This caricature style is used very consistently through his work and has almost become the font to which Slawn writes(paints).
As defined by Wikipedia — “…reappropriation, reclamation, or resignification is the cultural process by which a group reclaims words or artefacts that were previously used in a way disparaging of that group”. The intentions behind Slawn’s work are not only to be provocative but to subvert and absolve the “Golliwog” of its anti-blackness and racist connotations. Slawn’s ability to humanise the golliwog by modelling them after himself or others reshapes its initial objective from derogatory to neutral and somewhat empowering. A similar example of this is how African American’s are reappropriating the N-word, having changed the initial ending with -er to an -a, over-familiarising themselves with the word and then engaging the word as a form of endearment. The disarming of the N-word can be witnessed in Hip-Hop and Rap music over the years. Slawn takes an identical approach with the Golliwog in visual art as to what African-Americans rappers have done with the N-word in music.
Robin Brontsema believed that there are at least three main goals of reclamation: value reversal in which the previous derogatory word becomes positive over time, neutralisation in which the meaning of the derogatory term is neutral and stigma exploitation in which the meaning is retained to re-enforce and remind us about the unfair treatment of a particular group. Slawn’s efforts at amelioration have not gone unnoticed; his work is the equivalent of this for visual art, reclaiming ownership of the image and consequently subverting the ideas of anti-black imagery.
It’s not unnatural for art styles to exist as form of resistance to conventionality within the art world. Graffiti Art is one of these methods of resistance and revolution and is one of Slawn’s chosen mediums to channel his works. When we observe popular graffiti artists like Basquiat, Keith Haring and even Banksy it is more than evident that their work were focused more on getting across a message. It is an adequate vehicle for resistance and doesn’t assume the censorship that typically comes with art on a canvas. Graffiti/Street art quintessentially represents the rejection of governance and surveillance in the fact that in many countries, ‘Graffiti is an offence of criminal damage’. Hence it remains a means for which revolutionary and non-conformist ideas are conveyed and shared. It is intended to be provocative and challenge belief systems.
It is evident that while Slawn finds a lot of his work to be playful and enjoyable, it is unclear as to whether he knows the important role he plays presently in reappropriating anti-black imagery.