Adebunmi Gbadebo is a multimedia artist living and working between Newark, NJ, and Philadelphia, PA. Her practice is rooted in an exploration of ancestry, land, and the material legacies of the African diaspora. Working primarily with clay and soil sourced from sites connected to histories of enslavement in the American South, Gbadebo transforms earth into sculptural forms that carry both personal and collective memory. Through ceramics, assemblage, and installation, she creates vessels and figures that function as acts of remembrance and reclamation. Her work merges craft traditions with research-driven processes, using texture, fragmentation, and material presence to confront erased histories while honoring resilience and lineage.

Gbadebo’s work has been widely exhibited nationally and internationally, including in the 24th Sydney Biennale: Ten Thousand Suns and Hear Me Now: The Black Potters of Old Edgefield, South Carolina, which opened at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and traveled to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the High Museum of Art in Atlanta. Her recognitions include a Pew Fellowship and the Maxwell and Hanrahan Craft Fellowship. Her work is held in major public collections including the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, and the Newark Museum of Art.