How Middlesex inspired young artist Teoni Hinds's love of portraiture and kick-started her career

'Use what you have - and do what you want - don't wait on anyone to give you a hand-out' - Middlesex graduate Teoni and collaborator Slawn counsel up-and-coming young artists

Harrow-born Teoni Hinds has been making art for as long as she can remember. But she unhesitatingly credits the style and focus of her work – portraits hailed for their use of saturated colour, authenticity, and for capturing the vulnerability of their subjects and the small, raw moments of life – to Middlesex, from where she graduated in 2021.

"I met a lot of new people, which I guess pioneered my love for portraiture because I found a lot of different identities," she says.

She feels indebted to the “lovely, really cool” head of the Foundation course Beverley Speight for firing her interest. Then in Year One, she was introduced to life drawing by painting and drawing tutor Aldous Eveleigh (“a saint, my favourite person in the whole world") and spent the year developing her skills in this field.

Aldous “completely changed my art style,” she says. “I wanted to continue what he had done for me."

Teoni defines her practice as "figuring out what’s real, especially now when there’s always a lot going on. I like the fact that you’re creating space where you calm down for an hour and a half, and just retouch and touch grass as they say". Lucian Freud is an influence – she admires how he paints life without sentimentality.

She finds drawing from life therapeutic: "I’m a very anxious person, so it kind of just helps me de-stress. It helps me not even artistically which in turn helps me artistically. You’re more confident in your main practice. If someone tells you to draw, you’re not thinking about how the thing turns out."

Middlesex University’s provision of studio space on campus to all art students is a godsend, Teoni says, with the shortage of affordable space in London “everyone's main issue”. Her heart goes out to young artists restricted to making work in their rooms, which is limiting and hazardous if for example they are painting with oils.

Teoni is about to relocate but for the past three years has been sharing studio space, assisting and collaborating with hyper-hot property Nigerian artist and designer Olaolu Slawn. Slawn himself started, but never finished an Art Foundation course at Middlesex. Slawn and Teoni were contemporaries but never met at university - Teoni says she once saw him coming down in a lift.

They came together through the power of social media - Teoni saw a post from Slawn saying he was looking for a right hand to assist with his flurry of creative projects, "and we’ve been working together since really," she says.

They complement each other's working styles. Slawn’s cartoon-inspired work is bold, outrageous and impetuous.

“My work is about a lot of things: religion, racism, paying homage. Multiple personalities. The jester,” Slawn said in an interview with Esquire last year. “I couldn’t give you a detailed explanation of what all this means, but you get the vibes.” Teoni admits to being a perfectionist. Working with Slawn, "I literally learned how to speed up," she says. Slawn declares himself a huge admirer of Teoni's - she has "just made the best work I think I've seen in my whole life," he says: adding that he means out of any artist in history not just by the standard of her own output.

Together Slawn and Teoni (pictured above) have created an artistic community through BeauBeau's Art Club - a weekly session held on a Wednesday evening in the cafe Slawn and his partner Tallula Christie opened in Spitalfields in May 2023. The idea was to channel "the after school-type vibe," Teoni says: to make drawing and painting accessible and unpretentious, making aspiring artists and professionals keen to do some art on the side feel equally welcome. 

“I don't really tell people what to do, but all I ask is if you can draw or paint something that you can actually see in the room," Teoni told an interviewer. "We just have fun, connect, communicate and make friends."

One attendee describes Teoni’s efforts to "cultivate an atmosphere of acceptance and inclusiveness... collaboration, and trust." She has created a "haven... a home for the artists, the art lovers, and those who just want to doodle like they’re 8 again”.

Artist and storyteller Emily Stanissavjevic says the Art Club "represents a safe space where I can truly be myself, create art and have fun. It's such a supportive environment. I get the opportunity to be surrounded by so many talented young artists, and I think that constantly makes me want to raise the standard of my own work."

In feedback sessions Teoni holds one a month, where Art Club participants show her what they've been up to since the previous session, she's struck by the improvement. "One guy’s doing a group show now. A lot go to uni now or take their artistic practice more seriously".

A collaboration with the V&A led to a commission of work by two BeauBeau's Art Club artists, Marley Robson and Dani Novis for the exterior of the new V&A East in the Olympic Park.

In contrast to when Teoni was growing up, when "saying I wanted to do art sounded so stupid", now the sheer scale of Instagram, TikTok and other visual social media means "everyone’s an artist. You don’t have to hide it". The flip side of this, she says, is a heightened anxiety that you're never going to be good enough to cut it.

The economic and cultural landscape calls for exceptional agility and determination from emerging artists. "I did residencies in pubs and weird places just because I needed the studio space," Teoni says. "Or just force someone to give you a job, which is what I did!," she counsels. "Always look for a way to get what you want done".

“Virgil [Abloh] always said use what you have," Slawn says, quoting the late American fashion designer and creative entrepreneur with whom he closely collaborated. "And do what you want," adds Teoni. "Don't wait on anyone to give you a hand-out. My show [2024’s Honey], I did it myself."

"We get brands wanting to work with us," Teoni says. "We’re the first artists not asking for handouts," Slawn echoes.

Honey, Teoni’s debut solo show of 15 new works in Old Street last autumn, was acclaimed by Clash magazine as "an authentic expression and honest reflection of the people she loves and the relationships that have inspired her life and career... The number of smiles that leap from the canvases interrupts the rules of how traditional art exhibitions are supposed to be."

Teoni put the exhibition together, following her work’s appearance in a run of group shows including Joe ‘Freshgoods’ Robinson’s A Friend Named Cousin during the Paris Olympics.

"You think you know everything to do with arts shows. You’ve been to galleries your whole life, but when it’s your turn it’s like 'oh f***'. It hit me so, so hard.

"I’m not with a gallery so it’s just me independently funding my whole show and trying to do all the things that the gallery would usually take over... But it was good for me as an artist to put my body of work out there. And it was good practice - I definitely know for next time what to do and what not to do, and pass on the advice to other people as well."

Teoni Hinds, artist

Teoni says she has been "very, very lucky," with finding a market for her work. "It all comes directly to me. It’s really just word of mouth. Somebody will say: oh I’ve heard you’ve done this really sick commission." Her collectors include singer-songwriter Wizkid, rapper Little Simz and fashion designer Hussein Suleiman.

"But honestly social media helps, I’ve just put my whole body of work out there”. One of her works exhibited in Amsterdam she says has visitors coming away saying, "I saw that painting and I really want one for myself."

Teoni has collaborated with Converse to promote their One Star Pro sneakers and appears in sports shoe company New Balance's latest Made in UK lookbook. Meanwhile Slawn's Black and White Speckle reboots of the Nike Air Max 90, a project two years in development, have just been released. 

A new season of BeauBeau's Art Club started in February. But Teoni worries about the lack of options for young people looking for nights out in the capital. "We went out in Miami during the art fair [Art Basel last December] – that was good. But London is really lacking. We don’t really go out, unless it’s our or our friends’ events, or we’re hosting. London needs a real shaking up, the nightlife". (Slawn remains “still very insane” in his creative energy, Teoni jokes, in spite of becoming a father - to Beau and Baby, with partner Tallula Christie. For herself, she says: “I’m really chill now. I just like sitting on Primrose Hill").

Last year Middlesex art lecturers invited Teoni back to do a talk, an offer she is keen to take up. As for continuing her art studies, after her formative undergraduate experience? Slawn interjects he would love an honorary doctorate in arts diagnostics or art sales. "I would come back," Teoni says. "If I could do it again, I would for sure."