Place and Memory

Lateefat Tobun is a Nigerian contemporary visual artist based in the United Kingdom whose practice explores home, memory, belonging and cultural inheritance. Her work is shaped by experiences of place, movement and the ways people construct and reconstruct a sense of belonging.

Growing up in Lagos, Nigeria, Tobun developed a strong relationship with the natural environment, particularly the sea. She became fascinated by the way water could hold movement and stillness simultaneously. For her, the sea came to represent freedom, possibility, resilience and continuity, ideas that continue to influence the emotional language of her work.

Although she rarely depicts the sea directly in her paintings, she continues to photograph water, skies, clouds, sunsets and changing light. These observations form part of a personal visual archive alongside her journals, memories and everyday encounters.

Her relationship with materials developed through experimentation with colour, painting and African textiles. Working with fabrics including Adire, and later engaging with Ankara-inspired pattern, encouraged her to consider textile beyond decoration as a visual language capable of carrying memory, identity and cultural inheritance.

From Movement to Home

Moving from Nigeria to the United Kingdom changed the questions Tobun began asking through her work.

Through her own experience and everyday conversations with people navigating migration and cultural transition, she became interested in what happens after movement: the ambitions people arrive with, the identities they renegotiate, the memories they preserve and the ways a sense of belonging is reconstructed when circumstances change.

Migration consequently became a lens rather than the destination of her practice.

At the centre is home.

For Tobun, home is no longer defined only by geography. It can exist through relationships, community, memory, culture or an environment in which we feel safe enough to exist authentically. Her work asks how people carry and reconstruct that sense of home across places, relationships and changing versions of themselves.

From this central enquiry emerge the interconnected themes of memory, belonging and cultural inheritance.

A Reflective Practice

Tobun's creative process begins with reflection rather than certainty.

Before making the first mark on a prepared canvas, she spends time looking and searching for a starting point. She may write, listen to music or simply sit quietly and ask questions. Her reflective journals, personal memories, everyday conversations and observations of the natural world become part of an evolving archive from which the work develops.

She does not approach an artwork with a predetermined conclusion. Colour develops in response to the narrative and emotional atmosphere of each work, while textile and pattern introduce layers, forms and associations that can hold different interpretations. Rather than prescribing what an audience should feel, Tobun creates room for viewers to bring their own memories and experiences into their encounter with the work.

Unexpected marks are rarely erased simply because they were unintended. For Tobun, what may initially appear to be a mistake becomes part of the history of the work. This reflects how she understands human experience: our previous experiences are not erased when our circumstances change. They accumulate, reshape us and become part of who we are.

Material, Culture and Visual Language

Painting remains central to Tobun's visual practice, while textile, pattern and selected digital processes allow her to explore cultural inheritance, layering and connection.

African textile languages can appear both materially and visually within her work. The medium may change, but the enquiry remains connected: how memory and culture travel with us and continue to shape where and how we belong.

Beyond the Studio

Alongside her studio practice, Tobun increasingly extends these enquiries through exhibitions, public art and participatory creative projects.

For her, socially engaged practice is not separate from her visual work. Both begin with the same interest in creating spaces where people can pause, reflect, experiment and encounter something of themselves and one another.

Her developing public practice includes mural work and participatory creative programmes, while exhibitions in the United Kingdom and internationally have provided spaces for her evolving visual language to encounter different audiences.

Through these experiences, Tobun continues to explore the relationship between individual reflection and collective experience, and the ways visual art can create opportunities for cultural dialogue, participation and connection.

Looking Forward

Tobun continues to develop new bodies of work exploring home, memory, belonging and cultural inheritance while expanding her exhibition, public and collaborative practice in the United Kingdom.

Her interdisciplinary background, including experience with textiles and training in Applied AI and Data Analytics, provides additional tools for experimentation without defining the central subject of her practice. She is interested in thoughtful exchanges between traditional making and emerging creative technologies where they can expand artistic experimentation, participation and cultural dialogue.

Ultimately, Tobun's practice is concerned with what we carry: memory, culture, relationships, resilience and different versions of home.

Through visual art and shared creative experiences, she creates reflective spaces in which personal histories can become shared conversations.