Na Man You Be

Name: Na Man You Be
Brand: Raknida
Price: 55.0 USD
Availability: InStock

Joshua Adegboye

Digital illustration of a bearded man in a hoodie, cap and plaid jacket on a wooden stool, reading a book titled Na Man You Be, a yellow smiley card over his face, on a blue ground.

$55.00 – $125.00

A man in a hoodie and crowned cap reads a book titled Na Man You Be, written by society. A yellow smiley card hides his face. St. Clvtch's portrait of what it costs to be told to be a man.

Na man you be 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 →

The book in his hands is called Na Man You Be, and the author, printed on the cover, is Society. Joshua Adegboye means the rules every boy absorbs before he can question them: suppress your emotions, endure pain silently, keep the tough face. His man reads them closely, crown on his cap, white sneakers planted, a yellow smiley stuck over his face.

That smile, the artist says, is the performance of being okay, even when he may not be. Look just below its edge for what seems to be a single tear. The longer the mask stays on, the more it cuts a man off from his own feelings and identity. Adegboye drew it digitally in 2022, and he leaves us with his own question. He asks whether, beneath all these expectations, there is still space to simply be human.

Motifs in this work

Book 'Written by society': the unwritten rules men learn from boyhood

Smiley-face card: the performance of being okay

Hidden face: a man cut off from his own emotions

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.
Year: 2022
Includes: Your numbered artwork and its Cultural Passport.

Size	Sheet	Image	Museum-Quality Print only	Framed	Available
S	9 × 12 in	7½ × 10½ in	$55	+$65	20
M	18 × 24 in	15½ × 22 in	$85	+$119	20
L	24 × 32 in	21¼ × 30 in	$125	+$179	20

The artist

Joshua Adegboye

Edo / Benin · Lagos, Nigeria · 2 works on Raknida

Joshua Adegboye, who works as St. Clvtch, was born in Lagos in 1999 and is largely self-taught. He learned to draw by watching his elder brothers and studied Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Lagos. He committed fully to his art in 2018. His practice moves between charcoal, acrylic, graphite, ink, digital illustration and 3D work. His pictures turn on masculinity, mental health, social identity and his Edo/Benin roots. Design training gives the work its structure; drawing gives it feeling. In his words, the pencil leads the march, and the paint blows the trumpets.

View full profile →All 2 works →