Bijijoo at Saatchi Yates
16th March – 28th May 2023
14 Bury Street
St James’s
London SW1Y 6AL
Saatchi Yates is proud to present the inaugural solo exhibition of American TikTok sensation Michael Todd Horne – known as Bijijoo with a select number of new works delving into his personal world of monsters and characters that garnered him a cult following since joining the platform in March 2021. A zoo-like array of large-scale paintings sees amorphous, colour-drenched monsters emerge at Saatchi Yates, some with an unsettling glee reminiscent of the wonder and dread felt towards the unknown in childhood. Off-kilter in their gait and proportions, they lurch towards the boundaries of the canvas, and tap into nostalgia.
Courtesy of Saatchi Yates
Bijijoo’s paintings result from process-driven experimentation with painting media and automatic drawing, using traditional and digital techniques. He builds mixed media layers to amplify interplays of light, colour, and texture. Images are conjured from chaos, in a process akin to divination. The forms that take shape trend toward human and animal: grotesque exaggerations of life, monstrous cartoons, vanitas. Narratives emerge through these interactions, reflecting struggle, celebration, and introspection. The results depict experiences, interactions, and movements frozen in a personal space and time.
Courtesy of Saatchi Yates
In his practice, Bijijoo makes an innovative contribution to the artistic fields of figuration, abstraction and digital, weaving his lifelong passion for painting and drawing with his technical studies in mathematics, physics, computer science, and chemistry, which culminated in a Ph.D in biophysics in 2008. Though, at the heart of his work is the inspiration he draws from his daughter’s imagination and love of monsters.
Through meticulously framed, step-by-step shots of his painting processes, Bijijo’s TikTok videos convey the physicality of his work, accompanied with ASMR-inducing sound editing, and self-composed electronic music.
©2023 Bijijoo
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