Adiba Ndiwe is a 25-year-old, queer artist of mixed Celtic/Nigerian heritage. The artist doesn’t care about vulgarity. She finds amusement in mocking the white space gallery and the elitist and exclusionary institution of the arts, through material galvanised by her own, raw experiences as a marginalised person from a small, Welsh council estate. Her work heavily embodies juxtaposition; merging technical skill with doodles and serious political and social sentiments with satirical humour; an example of the methodology explored in Mixed-Forms of Visual Culture by Mary Anne Francis. Ultimately, she creates with the aim of sparking dialogue on important issues. Although artists such as Kehinde Wiley, Njideka Akunyili and Nadia Lee Cohen have helped shape her practice, the influence of the Vienna Secession and in particular Gustav Klimt bears accents in her practice. One could easily categorise Adiba as a multi-disciplinary artist, but she describes herself to be a painter due to the indescribable content she feels when painting.

“I make art for the estate kids, who due to systemic barriers might not ever know of their artistic potential” – Adiba Ndiwe