Godwin Oluwole Omofemi (Nigerian, Born 1988) Lost In Thought 1
Provenienza : [Timeline chronologique]
2020-04-09 | He has received two solo exhibitions at Signature Art Gallery in London; The Way We Were (12 March - 9 April 2020) and In Our Days (1-30 September 2021)
[Propriété non datée]
- A private collection, Nigeria
- Using vibrant colour to explore a deeply felt political message of self-love, Oluwole Omofemi has crafted a distinctive approach to contemporary Black portraiture
- Through his developing body of work, he has gained a reputation for his dazzling depictions of female subjects, typically set against luminous backgrounds such as the zingy red and cool blue floral motif of the present work
- Omofemi arrives at the composition of his paintings through a carefully considered process
- He first determines the mood that he wishes to convey through a work and selects the corresponding colour palette and clothing of his subject
- He then takes numerous photographs of a model which are narrowed down to one or two images from which he paints
- Working in acrylic and oil, he introduces an imaginative element that transcends the photographic image as he stylises the figure, often exaggerating elements such as the model's hair
- The realist approach taken to depict the subject are juxtaposed with the flatness of the background which, as in Lost in Thought 1, often feature flowers as a dedication to the artist's mother
- While the models for the paintings are typically friends and family of the artist, Omofemi believes they accrue a spiritual quality when transferred to canvas
- He understands women to be close to God as he associates the qualities traditionally associated with femininity, including love, acceptance, and forgiveness, with the Divine
- As Omofemi explains, 'I don't want to just paint a picture
- I want a picture that captures the soul
- I want a picture that captures personality
- These are the things I want people to see' (Omofemi quoted in P
- Laster, 2021)
- Lost in Thought 1 belongs to a body of work in which Omofemi explores the politicisation of hair to assert a powerful Black subjectivity
- He explains, '[i]n my paintings, I try to tell black people to accept who they are; accept their identity; accept their beauty' (Omofemi quoted in P
- He looks back to the transnational Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and 1970s when natural hair was valued as a means to eschew European styles and assert a strong Pan-African identity
- In the present work, a woman is presented in profile and her oversized afro dominates the canvas
- Entwined, in places, with the floral motif of the background, her hair is presented as a sign of beauty, strength, and power
- Reflecting on the symbolic qualities of his subjects' hair, Omofemi notes '[a] surprising capillary effect of Black hair which fills me with awe is no matter how we comb or treat our hair, [it will] never fall down, [but will] rather stretch or rise
- To me, hair is a pole or antenna which gives us the power to connect with the Divine' (Omofemi quoted in M
- Mobengo, 2021)
- In the last two years, Omofemi's work has garnered significant critical attention
- Since his debut on the secondary market in June 2020, his paintings have incited a string of record-breaking results at auction
- He has also exhibited work elsewhere in the UK and in Nigeria, Ghana, Italy, Belgium, and the US, asserting his place as one of the most sought-after emerging artists today
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