Janus 2

Name: Janus 2
Brand: Raknida
Price: 45.0 USD
Availability: InStock

Ibrahim Buhari Gambo

Square black-and-white illustration of two mirrored profiles facing outward, heavy brows and hatched marks under the eyes, large roundels above and a black diamond at the centre.

$45.00

Ibrahim Buhari Gambo brings the two faces of Janus close in a square black-and-white drawing. Mirrored profiles and heavy brows meet, with a black diamond hanging between their designs.

Janus 2 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 →

Janus 2 comes closer. Its companion sets two small faces inside a playing-card frame. This square is filled edge to edge by a pair of profiles turned away from each other, heavy-browed, a hatched teardrop beneath each eye. Above them two great roundels sit like watching eyes of their own; between them a black diamond hangs at the point where the designs meet.

Ibrahim Buhari Gambo draws all of it in black and white. Cross-hatching, arches and bands lock together so tightly that the two heads read as one structure with two outlooks. Janus, the Roman god of thresholds, was shown with a face on either side of his head so that nothing coming or going escaped him. Ibrahim's version is less a god than a person: someone keeping one eye on where he has been and one on where he is going.

Motifs in this work

Mirrored profiles: one person, facing two directions at once

Hatched teardrops: a mark of feeling beneath each steady eye

Black diamond: the jewel where both gazes divide

Edition: Edition of 20 in each size · 20 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	10 × 10 in	8½ × 8½ in	$45	+$65	20

The artist

Ibrahim Buhari Gambo

Undeclared · Abuja, Nigeria · 3 works on Raknida

Ibrahim Buhari Gambo is an Abuja-based artist who works and signs as Mojozorro, sometimes shortened to MZ. He draws in black and white only, and he fills every surface: dense, often mirrored compositions of cross-hatching, roundels, rays and flowers, with every line placed with intent. Symmetry and density do the work in his pictures, and the reward goes to whoever looks longest. He borrows freely, from classical myth to the ornament of playing cards, and turns what he borrows into fields of pattern that hold the eye a long time.

View full profile →All 3 works →