ADELINE JADOT
photo by Joseph Dalton
Adeline Jadot is a Belgian- Jamaican fine artist from Manhattan, New York with artwork ranging from large acrylic murals to decorative faux marble oil paintings. After graduating from the University ofColorado at Boulder with a degree in fine arts, she expanded her technique into the art of Trompe L’oiel at the world-renowned painting school, Vander Kelen Logelain, in Brussels, Belgium. Working with interior designers in New York City, she has done mural work and other decorative painting for known destinations, restaurants, and cocktail bars around Manhattan, such as Raines Law Room, Dear Irving, and Saks Fifth Avenue.
While painting as a freelance muralist in NYC, she is also known for her body of portraits that speak to the generation of people who can no longer be defined by the racial categorizations. Her work captures the audience with the intentional detailing and symbolism of each and every object portrayed in the paintings to break down the physical and emotional boundaries in the mind of the observer. With every glance, the paintings reveal a new symbolic detail, unveiling a whole new meaning to the portraits. (One of her portraits was recently apart of the world largest public art far, Cube Art Fair in NYC and was featured on a large screen in Times Square!)
Having been born to Belgian and Jamaican immigrant parents in NYC, every stage of Adeline’s life was a new battle with her identity. Should she be defined as white? Should she be defined as black? Should she look up to the over sexualized light skin women in the rap videos? People asking her if she was adopted, people asking her, “What are you?” This is a battle that many kids and adults with mixed race identities face every day. People often think that because people are mixed race that they should always feel like they belong because they are a little of everything. However, that is not usually the case. Coming from a heavily mixed family, with cousins ranging from Belgian/Mexican to Chinese/Jamaican, she felt the need to bring pride and support to the people growing up in the world today in multiracial homes. A reminder to all that these racial categorizations are no longer applicable to today’s society.
With these overwhelming identity feelings, at the age of 19, Jadot began to paint on large scale canvases with acrylic paint. Using herself as a model, she began her body of work by trying to tell the history of her people. This ignited the whimsical idea of having all of the symbols from her ancestor cultures included in her paintings. While these paintings first began to depict the fight of trying to belong, not being white enough, or not being black enough, her art moved in a different direction. It was muchmore complicated than just black and white; she had a story to tell. Her story is that of her people, using her racially ambiguous face in specific costumes and different scenarios in the setting of the classic European portrait, with the vibrancies of the Caribbean, mixed with some NYC attitude.
While Jadot’s work is beautiful and captivating, the symbols can often depict sad times throughout her ancestral history. From historical details of the events such as “Les Mains Coupees”; Belgians in the Congo, to the recent murder of George Floyd, Adeline’s message is clear. The world we come from is so cruel. There have been so many deaths due to the fact that some people do not like the way otherslook. So many murders have happened because society is not accepting of someone's skin tone. Adeline’s art is a reminder that although colonization severely wiped away some amazing cultures from our world, we would not have the beautiful new people and diversity that we have today.
Info347-229-7610adeline@adelineart.comInstagram: adelinejadot_