"No one can tell the story of my childhood better than I can." - Olatunde Oyinloye

Memories of a child focuses on a series of recent Oil paintings influenced by Olatunde’s memory of an early life in Africa, a time that reflects a happy, playful and almost carefree childhood.

This idea for the exhibition was first conceived from Olatunde’s observation over the years that very little is known in the UK, and probably many other parts of the world, about the real life of a girl or boy from a middle class family, or one that could be called a 'regular' background in his country of origin, Nigeria. Seeing mainstream media report on happenings in Nigeria, a constant question in his mind has always been when he would see an accurate representation that he could identify with. The sometimes difficult and rough childhood for children growing up in Africa is not the only reality Olatunde wants the viewing public to see.

Olatunde's approach to painting involves a wide variety of influences, sometimes expressed in his Landscape, Wildlife, Still life and Portrait paintings. But it is a strong desire to interrogate public persona with an objective view that singles out Olatunde's depictions as a visual narrator, a message that particularly comes across in this new body of work.

Paintings like The Race (2013) and Spin It (2013) reveal a capacity for play and the engaging fun that goes beyond any family's financial status. Kids are known to improvise with such creativity, making cardboard cars from boxes, and rolling disused tires. Play presents an environment where children develop their earliest abilities and life skills, including communication, judgement and resilience. Many of the compositions reveal a physicality that though fluid in nature, expresses a subtle energy; a subtlety that is both controlled but also brewing, staying still but probably a precipice ready to boil-over.