Abike

Name: Abike
Brand: Raknida
Price: 55.0 USD
Availability: InStock

Oluwatobiloba Emmanuel Komaiya

Illustration on rust red of a round blue mask face with six striped hair knots, cowrie shell earrings and an orange patterned comb as its body; a letter A and small copies in the corners.

$55.00 – $125.00

A girl's name as a playing card, on rust red. A blue mask is crowned with six striped hair knots, with cowries at the ears and a patterned comb for a body.

Abike is a Studio Edition: 20 museum-quality art prints in each size, each numbered in its white border. Every artwork comes with its Cultural Passport.

The Cultural Passport

Every order comes with the heritage documented.

Digital, emailed when your order ships: the work's story, the tradition it draws on and how it was made. 5 × 7 in (13 × 18 cm), ready to print and frame beside the work.

How it works →

Read it like a card. Oluwatobiloba Emmanuel Komaiya, who signs as KeO, sets Abike on a rust-red ground. A looping A sits in two corners and a small copy of the figure in the other two, the way a deck marks its aces. At the centre is the girl the name belongs to, drawn as a mask. She has a round blue face, eyes lowered under orange lids, a red mouth and six striped knots of hair ringing her head.

Below the face there is no body, only a comb, its three long teeth patterned with tiny glyphs. A cowrie shell hangs from each ear. Abike is a Yoruba name usually rendered as born to be cherished. KeO builds her from the things that cherishing involves: hair parted, knotted and tied, a comb in a patient hand. With Shindara and Yemisi she makes a hand of three named cards from this Lagos artist.

Motifs in this work

Comb in place of a body: the girl built from her care

Six striped hair knots: hair as crown, tended and tied

Letter A in the corners: her name dealt like an ace

Edition: Edition of 20 in each size · 60 across all sizes. Further runs possible once a size sells out, each tagged (Run 2). Edition numbers count the works sold through Raknida; the artist may also sell their own editions of this work.
Numbering: Number, title and artist printed in the white border.
Printing: Museum-quality giclée with archival pigment inks on museum-grade cotton fine art paper.
Includes: Your numbered artwork and its Cultural Passport.

Size	Sheet	Image	Museum-Quality Print only	Framed	Available
S	8 × 12 in	6½ × 9¾ in	$55	+$65	20
M	16 × 24 in	14 × 21 in	$85	+$119	20
L	24 × 36 in	22 × 33 in	$125	+$179	20

The artist

Oluwatobiloba Emmanuel Komaiya

Yoruba · Lagos, Nigeria · 4 works on Raknida

KeO is the name Oluwatobiloba Emmanuel Komaiya signs his work with, an illustrator based in Lagos, Nigeria. His three works on Raknida, Abike, Shindara and Yemisi, are built like playing cards. Each carries a girl's Yoruba name, its initial looping in two corners and a miniature of the figure in the other two. At the centre sits a mask-like face in flat, saturated colour. In every one the comb appears, as a body, as earrings, as hanging ornament. The result is playful and ceremonial at once, a hand of named girls.

View full profile →All 4 works →