I SEE IT
signed and dated Oluwole Omofemi 22 lower right
oil and acrylic on canvas
100 x 100cm; 39 1/2 x 39 1/2in
unframed

Property of a Private Collector, Maryland, USA

Provenance
Acquired from the artist by the present owner

Oluwole Omofemi is a Nigerian painter whose portraits celebrate Afrocentric identity, often using natural Afro hair as a signifier of freedom and pride. He gained international recognition with his 2022 Tatler Platinum Jubilee commission of Queen Elizabeth II, and shortly thereafter established himself as a conerstone of the contemporary Nigerian art landscape. The present work, depicting a woman with an outsized halo of hair against a vibrant red floral ground, exemplifies the compositional elements that brought the artist widespread accaim. He distorts the naturalism of the painting with his use of green pigment to highlight the skin of his figure. Omofemi's work overwhelmingly features female figures from life, with the artist depicting friends and family from his hometown. This reflects the artist's guiding imperative to memorialise blackness by treating his 'everyday' subjects with the same painterly attention he gives to royalty. In doing so, his work identifies itself within a lineage of artists in Africa and across the diaspora wherein black figuration acts as a strategy for combating a historic lack of representation.