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Profile Joy Yamusangie imagines feelgood moments in a fictional jazz club
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Ephemeral moments in a fictional, idealised jazz club are imagined by artist Joy Yamusangie at Greenwich’s Now Gallery
For Greenwich’s Now Gallery’s latest show, Congolese-British artist Joy Yamusangie has created something we’ve all been craving. The exhibition, Feeling Good, has transformed the gallery into a jazz club of the same name, and features bold-hued paintings on paper and fabric that depict the deliciousness of human interaction – from kissing by the bar to deep chats in the smoking area. “In that painting, we get a glimpse of the intimate conversation they are having at that moment, nothing before and nothing after,” Yamusangie says, “like when you overhear bits of a conversation that leaves more questions than it answers.”
Like many, Yamusangie found inspiration to be lacking as a result of lockdowns and restrictions. Their work, as a trans, non-binary artist, often takes an autobiographical approach, and has themes of community, family, and personal experience at its core. But for this commission, the springboard came in the form of a book on their partner’s shelf, Trumpet. Published in 1998 by Scottish writer and poet Jackie Kay, Trumpet tells the story of a fictional jazz artist named Joss Moody through recollections and memories of those closest to him. The book begins just after Moody’s death, upon which it is revealed that his biological sex was in fact female. Kay has spoken of how she had been inspired by the real life of Billy Tipton, an American jazz musician who had lived with the secret of being transgender.
“The book initially stood out to me as I was considering learning a musical instrument at the time,” says Yamusangie. “But after finding out about Billy Tipton’s story, I realised that it sounded so familiar to me.” They subsequently ended up in what they describe as an “online wormhole” – researching as much as they possibly could. “But as there wasn’t much online about Tipton. It left a lot of room for imagination.” The musician was born in 1914 and died in 1989, and his experience of simply existing as a trans man in the world at that time is something that played on Yamusangie’s mind. They began to imagine the clubs that Tipton may have played in, and how venues may exist now – envisioning them as spaces of “acceptance and belonging for trans and gender non-conforming people”.
It was imagining Tipton’s future existence that brought Yamusangie to the image of the club. Large-scale, colourful paintings feature bold line work, and stay true to the artist’s signature style, which has been informed over the years through experimentation across a number of mediums. Yamusangie’s training in illustration is always a key foundation, and they describe that approach as being a way to find “visual solutions” for briefs and imagined ideas alike.
“I see the works in this exhibition as a collage of everything that I’ve learned and tried over the years,” they say. “It feels like the best way to describe it would be as a reflection of me. But it was important to me to show moments of worry, fear, sadness – because in reality we don’t always feel good all the time.”
Feeling Good is the latest in Now Gallery’s Young Artist Commission programme, now in its fourth year, which has presented shows by promising up and coming names: Yamusangie follows on from illustrators Manjit Thapp and Hattie Stewart and crystal artist Sara Shakeel. It’s on at the gallery’s Greenwich Peninsula location from 24 March-5 June. Words Alice Morby
Facing page Joy Yamusangie, whose work touches on family, community and personal experience
Facing page Top to bottom: Strangers and Missed Your Chance. For their show at Now Gallery, Yamusangie imagines a jazz club that’s a place of acceptance and belonging Above The Show is Over: Yamusangie’s background in illustration brings a graphic quality to their art
ARCHITECTURE
Surveying the built environment
A House for Artists, London. Read the full story on p114 Image by Ståle Eriksen
