Nadine Ijewere has had her work displayed in a standalone showcase in the UK before, but not, she says, in a “solid exhibition”. “I did Tallawah with Jawara,” the photographer tells me, recalling her collaboration with the prolific hairstylist, a joyous celebration of Black hair that took over London’s Cob Gallery for just over a week back in 2020. “But that was more of a pop-up. It was amazing, but this feels really solid, so I do think of it as my first solo UK show.” The show in question is Anthesis, which is due to run at Mayfair’s Huxley-Parlour Gallery from 27 October, and will see 13 of her large-scale photographs go on display – striking images drawn from her extensive output between 2019 and 2023, which all possess the serene, painterly beauty that has become her signature.
It’s a wonder that it’s taken this long, given the stratospheric nature of Ijewere’s rise – less than a decade on from graduating from the London College of Fashion with a degree in photography, she’s worked with countless brands and fashion publications; participated in several group exhibitions, from The Tate Britain Generation to The New Black Vanguard, as well as the solo showcase Beautiful Disruption at C/O Berlin; released her first monograph, Our Own Selves; and made history as the first woman of colour to shoot the cover of any Vogue in 125 years (the Dua Lipa-fronted January 2019 issue of British Vogue, to be specific, after which she shot Selena Gomez for the cover of American Vogue in April 2021).
“It’s something I thought I might do one day, like 15 years into my career or something,” she laughs of the latter achievement. “But these things have come so quickly, and I’m so grateful for these opportunities, but it’s hard because I also want to have longevity.” That desire to slow down slightly and find a sense of permanence, or at least a greater sense than what’s afforded by the churn of monthly fashion magazines, led to the publication of her first book, and has now resulted in this new show. Important, too, was having a space that was all her own. “I get asked to be in group shows and I’ve done a lot of them, so I wanted to focus on solo shows,” she continues. “I feel like it’s my time – my time to have my own thing. Huxley-Parlour approached me back in May. I wanted to make sure the gallery was the right space for me – as an artist of colour I want to be conscious about the spaces my fashion images end up in – but we got on so well and they were so receptive to how I wanted to present myself.”
The difficulty, though, was selecting just 13 photographs from her sprawling body of work. “It was very tricky,” she admits. “There are images that get tied to you – ones that people always see and constantly reference. I love them, but sometimes you want to show people something new. For this show, it was about having that balance – understanding that even though people know my work in fashion, I’m not necessarily known in the art world, so this also has to be an introduction to my work.”
She began with a shortlist of 20 images, printed everything out and tried to look at them with fresh eyes. There were some which she always knew would make it in – “the photo of the four girls wearing ball gowns in the sand, the girl in pink, these images people know me for” – but others which no one had seen before. “You have negatives that get archived away and you never really go back to them,” she says. “But I did, for this. There’s the photo of the model in the water in the white dress – that’s an outtake from a Vogue shoot.”
To now see them blown up on the walls of the gallery has been revelatory. “It breathes a new life into the pictures,” she muses. “Nowadays, we consume photos through our phones or in a digital format, so to print my work on a larger scale has been amazing. I’m seeing all of these things in the images that I’d never seen before. The whole of the back wall of the gallery is just one large image – the one with the boat and the four fishermen – and when I saw it, I was like ‘Woah!’”
The overall effect when you enter the space is certainly stunning, with captivating portraits sitting beside panoramic landscapes and atmospheric studio shots – a broad range of images, but all connected by the underlying theme of Ijewere’s work: as she puts it, spotlighting “different types of beauty and representation in fashion imagery”.
Does she have any advice for young photographers, and women of colour in particular, who aspire to do the same? “Team building is a big one in fashion,” she replies. “In this industry, it’s not just about the photographer – it’s also about the talent, the styling, the make-up. Building that team that complement your work is crucial. They’re integral to the photos I take and their creativity adds to it. Social media is a great place to find them. I’d say that it’s also important to build your own interests rather than slotting into whatever’s ‘trending’ right now. As an artist, you’ll always be evolving, so you should stay true to what you like.”
That personal evolution is what inspired the name of her show. “Anthesis refers to a plant starting to open and bloom,” she explains. “This exhibition has older work and newer work – it’s about the growth of my work over this period.” That growth has been remarkable to witness, and, for Ijewere’s career, it’s clear that this is only just the beginning.
Nadine Ijewere: Anthesis will run from 27 October – 25 November 2023 at Huxley-Parlour.
