Tschabalala Self’s paintings reveal layers of visual intonations that seem to defy the genre’s two-dimensional nature, straddling between collage, assemblage, sculpture and figuration. Most of them are large canvas works that mysteriously capture something fundamental about the Black bodies they portray through the use of found or recycled material, thread, textiles and the manner in which the sewing machine is deployed like a drawing instrument. They exude grace and candour. They engender a mood and a mode that feels intrinsic to the figure’s way of being. They work so securely in the realm of fiction, the ‘put-together’ nature of the figuration an ode to the multitudes an individual self contains and the embodied nature of our subjectivities. Self seems to overtly suggest that the protagonists of her paintings are not necessarily real people or are not portraits of anyone with a fixed identity. There’s a floating quality that lends mystique to her figures, even when they are almost naked. As a viewer, I felt caught in the uncertainty of their beauty, like I was somehow implicated in the oppositional gaze the paintings and sculptures encapsulate. Discovering that Self was born in 1990, making her five years younger than me, filled me with both envy and awe. Has she always been at the height of her powers? How did she arrive at such an immediacy in her art? From whom did she inherit her propensity towards such meticulousness?

Around the Way hopes to show the beauty and complexity of the Black American character. – Tschabalala Self

Obviously, I seized the opportunity to converse with Ingrid Orman, who curated Self’s ongoing show Around the Way at Espoo Museum of Modern Art (EMMA), Finland. Orman is chief curator of Exhibitions at EMMA and was thrilled that her return to work after parental leave involved mounting this extensive show of around 20 pieces by Self, including recent paintings, life-size sculptures and three new paintings created expressly for the exhibition which is on view until May 5, 2025. The exhibition’s title is a colloquial reference to the Black American vernacular for an individual who somehow embodies the neighbourhood from which they come. Orman collaborated with Self to visibilise Harlem in New York City, where Self was born and raised, a place that continues to serve as her wellspring, within the museum’s galleries through ‘street views’, transposing it for Finnish and international viewers. “All of the characters in my painting have in some shape or form been inspired by the loved ones, friends, neighbours and strangers I encountered growing up in Harlem,” Self has said. “Around the Way hopes to show the beauty and complexity of the Black American character.”

The exhibition is the seventh iteration of In Collection, a series of annual commissions and exhibitions produced jointly by the Saastamoinen Foundation and EMMA. Through In Collection, the Saastamoinen Foundation develops its permanent collection by commissioning artwork from an artist they consider to be visionary, while the EMMA hosts an accompanying exhibition to celebrate their practice. Previous artists include Pierre Huyghe, Pilvi Takala, Chiharu Shiota, Eeva-Leena Eklund, Tatsuo Miyajima and Alicja Kwade.

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Video script by Harshali Pagare