Art
#Africa
#art history
#Awodiya Toluwani
#Indigenous culture
#painting
#portraits
![a painted portrait on a geometrically textured canvas of a Black woman with a large, iridescent afro, wearing a long necklace and a green gown](https://www.thisiscolossal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/TOLUWANI-001_Omowunmi.jpg)
“Miss. Omowunmi” (2022), acrylic on textured canvas, 37 x 30 x 1 inches. All pictures © Awodiya Toluwani, courtesy of Zidoun-Bossoyt Gallery, shared with permission
Whether or not portraying a quiet home scene or a sweeping panorama, Awodiya Toluwani’s putting work are linked via a singular floor. As a lot a topic of the work as his portraits, every canvas is roofed in aid marks that imitate scars, or tribal marks, traditionally widespread to a number of indigenous cultures in Africa. When European colonial governments started to sentence and criminalize the observe, it declined or disappeared altogether. However for some, persevering with the custom meant performing an act of resistance.
Toluwani’s work are created on this textured “pores and skin,” layering empowered portraits and atmospheric scenes over the darkish legacy of colonialism and human enslavement. The artist considers each the bodily scars of slavery—inflicted by whips and cane lashes—and the trauma it wrought on communities all through Africa, highlighting a fancy historical past. “Historical past is a really important a part of human existence,” Toluwani says in an announcement. “It offers us a greater understanding of lives lived up to now, higher methods to dwell within the current, and what legacy to go away for the longer term generations.”
Figures play a central function in Toluwani’s works, whether or not evocative of Dutch Golden Age work, reminiscent of Johannes Vermeer’s The Milkmaid (c.1660), or laboring inside a broader panorama in a cotton discipline or a fishing boat. The artist has not too long ago been drawn to compositions redolent of Lagos, Nigeria, particularly an inner-city slum often known as Makoko Village, by which residents construct stilt homes over a lagoon. The scarred textures are at all times current, starting from recognizable pictures of spiders, ft, or hearts, to summary glyphs and geometric shapes.
Study extra in regards to the artist on Zidoun-Bossoyt Gallery’s website.
![a painted portrait on a geometrically textured canvas of a Black woman pouring liquid into a jug, dressed in clothing reminiscent of figures in Johannes Vermeer paintings](https://www.thisiscolossal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/TOLUWANI-004_The-Milkmaid.jpg)
“The Milkmaid” (2022), acrylic on textured canvas, 61.81 x 48.82 inches
![a horizontal painting on a geometrically textured canvas of a field with numerous Black people working to collect the cotton](https://www.thisiscolossal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/TOLUWANI-006_Sweat-and-Blood.jpg)
“Sweat and Blood” (2022), acrylic on textured canvas, 59.84 x 77.95 inches
![a painting of a pregnant Black woman wearing 17th century Dutch-style garments, holding up a garment she is making out of lace](https://www.thisiscolossal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/TOLUWANI-005_Mother-s-Instinct.jpg)
“Mom’s Intuition” (2022), acrylic on textured canvas, 61.81 x 48.82 inches
![a horizontal painting on geometrically textured canvas depicting a dramatic sunrise with a boat in the foreground and mountains the background. a figure works near the boar and various objects sit around it, halfway in the water](https://www.thisiscolossal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/TOLUWANI-032_Dawn-Set.jpg)
“Daybreak Set” (2023), acrylic on textured canvas. 48 x 72.25 inches
![a painting of a misty harbor with a single figure in one of the boats and a cityscape in the background](https://www.thisiscolossal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/TOLUWANI-045_Minding-Ones-Business.jpg)
“Minding One’s Enterprise” (2024), acrylic on textured canvas, 59.5 x 78 inches
![a portrait of a woman sitting in a chair by a window with large drapery. she holds a cat in her lap and wears a blue skirt and white top](https://www.thisiscolossal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/TOLUWANI-018_Queen-Yelena.jpg)
“Queen Yelena” (2022), acrylic on textured canvas, 48.82 x 61.02 inches
![a portrait of a regal Black woman with a fanned hairstyle, sitting at a three-quarter angle and wearing a teal blue gown](https://www.thisiscolossal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/TOLUWANI-009_wife-of-Akenge.jpg)
“Spouse of Akenge” (2022), acrylic on textured canvas, 36.02 x 29.92 inches
#Africa
#art history
#Awodiya Toluwani
#Indigenous culture
#painting
#portraits
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