Art on the Underground at Transport for London has commissioned a new mural for Brixton Underground station by the celebrated British artist and 2024 Turner Prize nominee Claudette Johnson. The work will be displayed on 24 October 2024 and will be in place for a year.
Claudette Johnson is perhaps most recognised for large-scale drawings that catch something of the power and presence of Black women and men. Working in such media as gouache, watercolour, oil pastel, and pencil, her figures are monumental in scale, filling the frame yet offering an intimate experience. In counterpoint to debilitating stereotypes, her practice insists on the political within the personal, emphasising shared humanity.
Johnson created a breathtaking triptych of Black women for Brixton Underground for her first public commission. It takes its cue from an earlier work, Trilogy, from the 1980s, also of three standing women. The sitters in Three Women evoke the poses in Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon of 1907-a work that inspires and troubles Johnson. This is, for her, a painting of the problematic and often fractured relations between modernist art, African culture, and the female form. When she saw it as a student, she says, it made her reflect on her place as a Black woman in art, up against the exclusions and distortions of Western art history. In Three Women, Johnson takes back that narrative. He portrays her subjects with self-assurance that resists the colonial gaze and eroticisation so familiar in modernist art. At Brixton station, these figures are rendered monumental, as if bursting through the very frame to disrupt narrow readings of African art and the Black female body.
Johnson remarks about the new work: “Three Women was inspired by my earlier work Trilogy, 1982–86, featuring three standing figures that assume poses reflecting their attitude toward their position in the world. For this work, I have loosely referenced Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon by having the sitters take up seated poses similar to those of ‘les demoiselles.’ I am fascinated with the power these postures speak from my enduring interest in women and power, how we claim space where we have historically been absent, obscured, caricatured, or denied.
Justine Simons OBE, Deputy Mayor for Culture and the Creative Industries said: “Art on the Underground is an integral part of London’s Transport network, bringing outstanding art to millions of commuters daily. I’m so delighted that Claudette Johnson is the next artist to take over Brixton station with a powerful triptych of Black women centre stage. It inspires everyone who sees it as they journey across our city.
Eleanor Pinfield, Head of Art on the Underground, said: “Claudette Johnson’s new work at Brixton Underground celebrates the Black female experience with this striking triptych. Her commission continues our work with contemporary muralism in Brixton for Art on the Underground. Drawing on inspiration from her original work of the 1980s, Johnson’s work will be both monumental and intimate, affording millions of people an opportunity to encounter her powerful vision.
James Reed CBE, Chairman of Reed, an Art on the Underground sponsor, said: “Claudette’s work brings a view on the Black female experience that will surely delight many of the millions using the Underground. At Reed, we know how important it is to see good representation in the workplace, and it’s great to see that translated into public art for everyone to enjoy.”
Johnson’s mural joins works by artists such as Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Denzil Forrester, and Joy Labinjo, all of whom have created work for the Brixton station programme. Launched in 2018, the project invites artists to respond to Brixton’s vibrant stories, paying tribute to the rich local mural tradition of the 1980s.
Johnson has also been nominated for the prestigious Turner Prize 2024. Her work will feature in the Turner Prize exhibition at Tate Britain from 25 September 2024. The winner will be announced on 3 December 2024. Having been one of the founding members of the BLK Art Group in the 1980s, Johnson is one of the leading voices in British art today.
Top Photo: Claudette Johnson, Protection, 2024 © Claudette Johnson Courtesy the artist and Hollybush Gardens, London. Photo: Any Keate