About The Artist

Adeline Poufong is a cis, queer, able bodied woman of colour. She was born and grew up in Ireland to a white Irish mother and black Cameroonian father and moved to the land known as Vancouver in 2018 to pursue a career in the film industry as a sculptor and prop maker. She attended art college in Limerick, Ireland where she studied ceramics but in recent years she has fallen in love with oil painting. When she is not working or painting she can be found writing, reading, knitting, running, thinking of ways to smash the patriarchy, disrupting the racist and classist systems and trying not to crumble under the weight of intersectionality.  

Early in 2022, when I took some time to be with myself and learn what it really means to exist as a queer black woman, my whole life changed. I can credit the beginning of my unravelling to reading Bell Hooks “Ain’t I a woman?”. What started as curiosity led to the beginning of a journey that had been long overdue.

Up until recently my work was an empathetic release, incorporating nature and an exploration of poignant occurrences that lead me to reflect more deeply on the workings of human nature and the influence our surrounding can have on us; a search for the beauty in the world around me. But I have come to realize that I don’t even have to look that far and my work has begun to take a new direction.  I have been exploring the effects of generational trauma and internalized racism and sexism as well as growing up in a predominantly white community and how this influences the way in which I move in the world and the way other people perceive me. My art practice is guided by conversations with other people of colour, immigrants, family members and most importantly self reflection. This painful, confusing and sometimes messy exploration forms the narrative of the body of work I continue to develop.

I often use poetry and writing to bridge the gap between intense, overwhelming feelings and the canvas I paint on. I constantly have to remind myself to be patient. 

I have been examining just how deeply rooted racism is and for the first time in my life looking the demons right in the eye. This has given birth to a new season of artistic expression. My relationship with my art is ever changing. Where I once turned to making art as a means of escaping reality, I have now come to respect it as an essential tool for survival. In the search for black queer female liberation and as I continue to learn, my work is both a sanctuary and outlet for new ideas, frustrations and difficult realizations that I hope will eventually lead to radical action and social change, however small.