Crown

Name: Crown
Brand: Raknida
Price: 45.0 USD
Availability: InStock

Toni Kuyinu

Monochrome portrait of a young Black man, eyes closed, wearing a gold crown among grey roses, with gold marks beneath one eye and a gold line down his lips and chin.

$45.00 – $110.00

A young man crowned in gold and grey roses, eyes closed: the centrepiece of Toni Kuyinu's royal trio with Kingdom and Queendom.

Crown 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 →

Toni Kuyinu painted Crown to hang between Kingdom and Queendom, and it is the one portrait of the three that faces us. A young man, crowned in gold and ringed with grey roses, holds his head level and keeps his eyes shut. No one is being looked at. Nothing is being asked for. The crown is the only warm colour in the picture, and he wears it as if it had always been there.

Look closer and the gold travels: a short row of marks beneath one eye, a single line drawn down through his lips to the chin. There is also a gilded edge on his white collar. The marks under the eye and the gold at the lip return on the queen in Queendom, so the trio reads as one household. Hung together, king and queen turn their profiles in from either side, and Crown is the still point they turn toward.

Motifs in this work

Closed eyes: authority that needs no audience

Gold line through lips and chin: a mark shared with Queendom

Grey roses around the crown: softness set beside rank

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 × 10 in	6½ × 7¾ in	$45	+$65	20
M	16 × 20 in	14 × 17 in	$75	+$119	20
L	24 × 30 in	22 × 26½ in	$110	+$179	20

The artist

Toni Kuyinu

Yoruba · Toronto, Canada · 4 works on Raknida

Toni Kuyinu is a Toronto-based artist who paints young Black faces in soft greys and lets gold do the rest. His three works on Raknida, Crown, Kingdom and Queendom, were painted to hang together. They show a king in profile, a queen in profile, and between them a crowned young man who faces us with his eyes closed. The skin is modelled in charcoal tones and the metal is the only warm colour. Small gold marks repeat from face to face, beneath an eye, across a lip, so the three read as one household.

View full profile →All 4 works →