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Michael
Michael
@mdstamper.bsky.social
3 months ago
Against a deep, midnight-blue background on a square canvas, the artist’s face emerges in warm beiges and creams, angled down and slightly to the side. Heavy-lidded eyes look inward rather than meeting ours. Her nose is softly modeled. Full lips are painted a saturated red. One hand rises beside her head, as if pausing a thought, setting a boundary, or shielding from glare. Her dark hair is gathered into an expansive, sculptural mass, edged with quick, light strokes that read like comb marks catching light. Broad, matte planes and visible brush-drag keep the surface tender and intentional to be present, but not polished. Made early in Nigerian artist Modupeola Fadugba’s professional turn toward art, this 2014 self-portrait carries the logic of her wider practice of a mind trained in systems (chemical engineering and economics) and education, now using paint to ask how “value” is assigned and who gets to be legible, desirable, or believed. Instead of a front-facing declaration, she offers interiority. Her lowered gaze refuses the demand to perform while her lifted hand quietly regulates access. Even the hair brcomes architecture as protective, weighty, and self-authored to suggest that identity is built, maintained, and sometimes defended. Shown later at Temple Muse in Lagos (curated by SMO Contemporary Art), the portrait resonates with the language of navigating a “sea” of competition while remembering cooperation and communal care. The limited palette compresses the body into essentials (face, gesture, hair, mouth), as if saying that before the world appraises me, I decide what I will reveal. The red mouth, especially, doesn’t feel like decoration so much as insistence on a voice held in reserve. By leaving brushwork visible, Fadugba keeps herself from becoming a product. Instead, the portrait becomes an ethics of looking and likely asking us to honor a Black woman’s private life without turning it into a spectacle.

Against a deep, midnight-blue background on a square canvas, the artist’s face emerges in warm beiges and creams, angled down and slightly to the side. Heavy-lidded eyes look inward rather than meeting ours. Her nose is softly modeled. Full lips are painted a saturated red. One hand rises beside her head, as if pausing a thought, setting a boundary, or shielding from glare. Her dark hair is gathered into an expansive, sculptural mass, edged with quick, light strokes that read like comb marks catching light. Broad, matte planes and visible brush-drag keep the surface tender and intentional to be present, but not polished. Made early in Nigerian artist Modupeola Fadugba’s professional turn toward art, this 2014 self-portrait carries the logic of her wider practice of a mind trained in systems (chemical engineering and economics) and education, now using paint to ask how “value” is assigned and who gets to be legible, desirable, or believed. Instead of a front-facing declaration, she offers interiority. Her lowered gaze refuses the demand to perform while her lifted hand quietly regulates access. Even the hair brcomes architecture as protective, weighty, and self-authored to suggest that identity is built, maintained, and sometimes defended. Shown later at Temple Muse in Lagos (curated by SMO Contemporary Art), the portrait resonates with the language of navigating a “sea” of competition while remembering cooperation and communal care. The limited palette compresses the body into essentials (face, gesture, hair, mouth), as if saying that before the world appraises me, I decide what I will reveal. The red mouth, especially, doesn’t feel like decoration so much as insistence on a voice held in reserve. By leaving brushwork visible, Fadugba keeps herself from becoming a product. Instead, the portrait becomes an ethics of looking and likely asking us to honor a Black woman’s private life without turning it into a spectacle.

“Self Portrait for 2014” by Modupeola Fadugba (Nigerian) - Acrylic on canvas / 2014 - Temple Muse (Lagos, Nigeria) #WomenInArt #art #artText #artwork #BlueskyArt #ContemporaryArt #WomensArt #WomanArtist #WomenArtists #ModupeolaFadugba #Fadugba #TempleMuse #SelfPortrait #NigerianArt #NigerianArtist

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