Sadé Adeshola Sarumi (born 1999, England) is a London-based artist whose work combines poetry, visual art, and storytelling to illuminate contradictions within the human experience. Using memory as both material and method, Sarumi’s work explores themes of sapphism, obsession, anxiety, and interpersonal connection. Through emotional timelines, fractured recollections, and imagined dialogue, she navigates the shifting spaces between reality and performance.

Bold, semi-clothed, and often alien-like figures define her visual aesthetic. Emerging from a place of immediacy, her characters are never pre-drawn but arrive fully formed, shaped by a studied awareness of the performative worlds they inhabit. These are neurodivergent spaces, where inherited social scripts are undone and new emotional architectures emerge. Through these figures, she interrogates how identity is curated, how personas shift between public and private spheres, and what it means to unmask.

Her work oscillates between confession and concealment, often looping or lingering on a single unresolved feeling. Words and visuals fold into one another, mimicking the learned behaviours adopted to survive environments that feel emotionally or psychologically inhospitable. In this way, her paintings become sites of both camouflage and revelation.

Sadé has held curatorial roles at Tate Britain and UCL, contributing to significant exhibitions such as The 80s: Photographing Britain, and playing a key role in developing UCL’s art collection and public programming. She is also the founder of an independent art club with over 1,000 members, fostering connection through the arts beyond institutional frameworks.