Painting with Photography: Adebiyi by Rotimi Fani-Kayode

Printed in 1991 by Alex Hirst, the artist’s romantic partner and collaborator, this artwork features broad brushstrokes and texture that make it seem like a painting. These are actually qualities of a highly technical photographic printing process called gum bichromate.

Adebiyi presents a contorted male, torso bare and eyes closed, wearing a floral headpiece. The figure holds the cast of a mask, whose stripes invoke the Yoruba trickster god Eshu. This object serves as a potent symbol of the Yoruban artist’s past. Born in Lagos, Nigeria, in 1955, Fani-Kayode came from a family who served as protectors of the prestigious Shrines of Ife, the ancestral Yoruba capital. However, the Nigerian Civil War forced the family to leave the country for Brighton, England, when the artist was only 11 years old.

The grainy surface texture and undulating lines across the composition are not part of the photo’s content, but rather markings left from the gum bichromate process. Gum bichromate printing was invented and patented in the mid-1800s, but did not gain popularity until the 1890s, when artists realized they could use this experimental photographic process for more than reproducing reality. This method allowed artists to create images that more closely resembled drawings or paintings.

Although this process does not particularly yield crisp detail, the lines gracefully balance the graininess of the composition. Consider how the horizontal and vertical lines interact with the figure’s body. At the bottom of the photograph, where the image recedes into darkness, horizontal lines echo the angle of the figure’s arms and mask. Similarly, the vertical brushstrokes at the top and bottom of the work mimic the dangling flowers on the headpieces and the slanted stripes in the mask.

interacting lines

Note the horizontal lines on the left and the vertical lines on the right

This printing process begins with coating the paper surface with a solution that contains gelatin or gum arabic, potassium or ammonium dichromate, and pigment. This solution is light sensitive: exposure to light will change its physical state and appearance.

After applying the solution, the photo’s negative—the raw, undeveloped film—is placed on top of the mixture and exposed to a UV light source. The gum solution then hardens in direct proportion to the light it receives. This means that the darkest areas in Adebiyi were the lightest parts of the negative, while the highlights, like those on the mask, the figure’s arms, and headpiece, were the darkest portions of the negative. Once it receives enough light, the print is washed with water until the softer, unexposed gum dissolves, leaving the hardened gum to reveal the image.

The edges of Adebiyi reveal the two color layers used in the developing process. A red and a gray pigment combine to yield an intense, dark copper color. However, these layers do not always align precisely with one other. For example, the stripes on the mask (see detail below) present red and gray lines next to each other, that when observed up close create separate, distinguishable stripes.

Far from being an “error” in precision, this yields more crispness to the otherwise grainy composition.

Adebiyi’s top edge indicates that this sheet of paper was torn from the spiral binder of a larger paper pad. This could mean that the artwork itself was intended as practice or exploration, rather than a “finished work.” As mentioned above, although Fani-Kayode took the photograph, it was his partner and artistic collaborator from 1983 to 1989, Alex Hirst, who printed this version of Adebiyi. Hirst was given the artist’s negatives after Fani-Kayode passed away in 1989 from AIDS-related complications.

Adebiyi represents the pair’s collaboration even after Fani-Kayode’s passing. While Fani-Kayode did not commonly use the gum bichromate process, Hirst’s use of it was certainly a way to honor his late partner’s legacy.

The Nigerian artist once claimed that, “On three counts I am an outsider: in matters of sexuality; in terms of geographical and cultural dislocation; and in the sense of not having become the sort of respectably married professional my parents might have hoped for.” The photographic and the painterly in Adebiyi work together to evoke the ebb and flow of his life: being forced to leave his home; reconciling his Yoruba spirituality with the Western world; not conforming to Western norms of gender and sexuality; and exploring his intersectional identity through the arts.

—Alexandra Kader Herrera, McMullan Arts Leadership Intern, Photography and Media 

See Adebiyi in Project a Black Planet: The Art and Culture of Panafrica before it closes on March 30, 2025.

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