Destinie Adelakun is an award-winning contemporary multi-disciplinary artist originally from the sun-kissed groves of West Africa and South India.
Destinie Adelakun in her home studio 2020
Her work explores the themes of pre-colonized African/Indian history, mythology, religions, and spirituality in the forms of photography, film, paintings and sculptures.
She utilizes individuals in her work personifications of principles and re-illustrated African and Indian mythological tales. She celebrates women of the African and Indian diaspora and plays with adornment that embodies the creative direction of the work.
Her paintings and photography provoke social commentary and critique old-fashioned perceptions of what defines beauty through socio-political and historical social norms as they relate to anti-blackness, shadism, and colourism’ – as well as their universal implications of the female body.
The self-taught artist was born in Lagos, Nigeria and raised in Nagpur, India, and she currently lives and works between Toronto, Canada and New York City.
Adelakun is the selected 2020 cohort of the Toronto Arts Foundation Launchpad bursary. In 2020 she was awarded the Canadian Women Artist Award by the New York Foundation for the arts.
Being a community and mental-health advocate, Destinie co-founded the collective Behind the Art.
She utilizes this platform to tell stories of the diaspora and curate events that bring the diaspora together and create awareness around taboo subjects.