Yeside Linney - Artist
About My Work
I paint from the space between two cultural streams. My Britishness and my Nigerian heritage run through my work as twin currents; sometimes converging, sometimes resisting one another, always shaping the quiet psychological terrain I inhabit. Born in Nigeria and raised in England, I’ve lived with the subtle dislocations of diaspora: the feeling of being rooted in two places yet fully claimed by neither. Painting is where I reconcile that split. It is where I rebuild a heritage once withheld and give form to the complexity of my lived experience.
Through layered abstraction, atmospheric landscape, and intuitive mark making, I create environments that hold memory, longing, and psychological quiet. The Surrey countryside with its moss, bark, heaths, and shifting light becomes emotional terrain rather than literal scenery. These textures allow me to explore internal states: drift, fracture, reconnection.
Female figures appear in my work occasionally, emerging as anchors within these shifting landscapes. They are not portraits but presences, serving as embodied markers of resilience, ancestry, and the quiet strength that underpins my practice. Their forms echo the dual currents I navigate, standing at the intersection of British environment and Nigerian cultural memory.
My practice centres on repair, with seams and translucent, time worn layers holding both cultural loss and the possibility of renewal. Each painting becomes a place where memory, imagination, and lived experience come together. I don’t paint themes; I paint states of being, and no two states of being are ever the same. The colours form a constant world, while the emotional and narrative shifts are the variables
My background as an English teacher shapes the rhythm and structure of my paintings; each work feels like a chapter in a larger narrative about belonging, reclamation, and the inner negotiations of diaspora life. Institutional acquisitions, prize shortlists, and award recognition have supported this trajectory, affirming the resonance of these themes within contemporary British art.
My work is an act of returning both to myself, to my Yoruba heritage, and to the landscapes that continue to shape my inner world. In every painting, the British and Nigerian currents meet, collide, and find a place to coexist.
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About Me
Yeside Linney is a self taught artist based in Surrey. The National Trust landscapes around her home which form the foundation of her work. These environments help her explore her Nigerian heritage, identity and the experience of moving between different cultural worlds. As her understanding of her heritage has deepened, she has become increasingly interested in the duality of being a Black woman working within rural, often predominantly white spaces. Her paintings are primarily atmospheric landscape abstractions, with occasional figurative elements that introduce a human presence into these settings. Her work is known for its layered surfaces, texture and emotional depth.
Yeside has gained wide recognition, including a double award in the Women in Art Prize (2022). She has exhibited alongside established artists at Watts Gallery in Compton, Surrey, and was selected to show at the TUC Congress Hall for the Windrush 75 celebrations. In 2023, she contributed a work to a Bonhams auction hosted at Hauser & Wirth, Savile Row, as part of a Hospital Rooms initiative featuring international artists.
In 2024, she was selected for Black Joy at Hastings Museum & Art Gallery, where one of her works was acquired for their contemporary collection. She has been shortlisted for many prizes, including the International ArtGemini Prize and the IngDiscerning Prize. Her 2025 exhibitions included the London Art Fair and the Women in Art Fair.
In 2026, Yeside exhibited internationally with a show in New York. She also has work on loan at Homerton College, Cambridge, reflecting growing interest from academic and cultural institutions. She was invited to serve as a judge for the New Emergence Prize, recognising her growing influence within contemporary art.
Yeside continues to exhibit across the UK and internationally, contributing to ongoing conversations about landscape, identity and the Black British experience.