Shindara

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

Oluwatobiloba Emmanuel Komaiya

Illustration on green of a round mask face with a red fringe, two red buns, heavy-lidded blue eyes, tongue out, blue comb-shaped earrings and a red bead loop; letter S and small copies in corners.

$55.00 – $125.00

A mask with a red fringe, heavy-lidded blue eyes and her tongue out wears two blue combs as earrings. On green, it is the cheekiest of KeO's three named cards.

Shindara 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 →

Shindara has her tongue out. Of KeO's three named cards she is the cheekiest. She has heavy-lidded blue eyes under sweeping lashes, a red fringe combed down over the brow, two red buns, and a mouth caught mid-tease. A red S with a small glint of light marks two corners of the green card; the other two hold her in miniature.

Then look at her earrings. They are combs, three blue teeth apiece, carved over with the same fine glyphs that run through all three works. A loop of red beads hangs below her chin like a necklace of office. KeO keeps returning to the comb, the plainest tool in any house, and hanging it where jewellery should be. Beside Abike and Yemisi, Shindara is the sister who will not sit still for the photograph, and the set is better for her.

Motifs in this work

Comb earrings: the everyday tool of hair care worn as jewellery

Tongue out: play and mischief inside a ceremonial form

Red bead loop: a necklace that reads as a mark of office

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 →