Rugiyatou Ylva Jallow, SE/GM

Rugiyatou Ylva Jallow (b. Stockholm) is a Swedish–Gambian painter whose portraits probe belonging, kinship, and self-possession through a precise material language.

Raised in Sweden within a Gambian family, she draws on both contexts to shape a clear language of belonging. Working in acrylic and oil, Jallow places wax-dipped threads atop the canvas; these linear elements act as connective markers, evoking ancestry, care, and relation. Hands recur as held, pointing, or shielding forms, suggesting protection and agency.

Color is vivid and purposeful, drawing on light, pattern, and nature to anchor a sense of place. Across the practice, composition and surface propose a layered idea of identity: inward and outward at once, self-directed yet relational, attentive to how a body claims space, remembers, and connects across cultures.