ruby onyinyechi: This is a four panel drawing. The intention was to frame each panel separately and then hang together at whatever closeness the collector prefers. I'm still thinking about shifting spaces, so composing drawings as separate panels allows me to move them around and play with space and installation more fluidly. I love the "photo studio" portrait era from West Africa circa 1960s and 70s. Something about opting to put on a nice outfit, and go to a photo studio to pose, lounge and generally be at leisure in the immediate aftermath of "independence" from colonial powers, is a striking display of resilience, grace and self worth.
I used two references for this piece. One - a photograph of two women [swoon!] on a motorcycle and one a photo I love of two women at a coffee table. There's something about the staging and performance and the ease / familiarity. Like, is anything happening in this image at all?! I'm obsessed with mundane nothingness and the magnitude of those moments between two people. They don't need to speak, but everything is said in the way they are sitting together. I file these sorts of images into my tab called "INTIMACY". I'm always looking for gestures that are simple, vague and poetic [like, I wouldn't draw people hugging and laughing - too obvious and simplistic]. Give me nuance and poetry any day!
As always I tell stories without time or linearity. So separating these two with an image of them at another moment, riding a motorcycle on top of a swimming pool makes perfect sense! All space and time folds on itself. Multiple realities existing simultaneously. The title comes from this Igbo spiritual framework of how we incarnate. The idea is that some souls agree to come but only if and when other souls will journey with them. I've been drawing a lot of journeys recently [as I'll touch on in the other pieces too]. This piece is about that type of relationship that needs nothing yet moves as one - a decision made before even stepping foot on earth.