UNTITLED
signed Omofemi / 17 lower right
mixed media on canvas
100.5 x 100.5cm; 39 1/2 x 39 1/2in
unframed

Oluwole Omofemi is one of the most immediately recognisable figurative painters of his generation. Born in Ibadan in 1988, Omofemi built a rapidly expanding international profile with exhibitions across the United Kingdom, Spain, Belgium, Italy, France, Ghana, and the United States. In 2022 he achieved international prominence as the first African artist commissioned to paint the reigning British monarch, producing a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II for Tatler magazine's Platinum Jubilee edition, an image that brought his distinctive visual language to a global audience. In 2026, he was commissioned once again to depict HRH The Prince of Wales.

That language is immediately his own: figural compositions in which subjects are rendered with penetrating psychological intensity against atmospheric, gestural grounds, their identities inscribed with haloed Afros, close-cropped sakora cuts, and scarification marks - his visual lexicon for African femininity, heritage, and self-possession. Lots 8 and 9, produced by Omofemi in 2017 and 2016 respectively, reflect the earliest iterations of his practice. This abstracted portrait reveals the development of the artist’s distinctive style. Depicted with an expressive and colourful palette, Omofemi builds the figure from a series of impasto markings, following in a painterly tradition that invokes the work of West African luminaries like Ablade Glover (see lot 10).