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Curator's Note

Àríké carries the name her family chose: meant to be spoiled on sight. Funmilayo Tejumola paints her as a young woman preparing for marriag…

Curator's Note

In Nigeria, a celebration has not begun until someone dances. Ekundayo catches three dancers at its height, faces left in soft pencil, the …

Curator's Note

Emmanuel takes the thing a woman is taught to cover and paints it as weather: vitiligo shaped like clouds at first light. It is the gentles…

Curator's Note

Omotayo Tajudeen lights his sitter from behind until the gold seems to come from the figure itself. The crown is beaded, the robe sweeps ou…

Curator's Note

Look long enough and the noise resolves into order: the whole field is built to read the same upside down. Anth Ezeokoye's training as an a…

Curator's Note

Of Toni Kuyinu's three royals, only the king keeps his eyes open, and he wears round wire glasses. A thoroughly modern young man, crowned w…

Curator's Note

Toni Kuyinu's gold usually crowns kings and queens. Here it rings the closed eye of a girl holding a single white feather to her face. It i…

Curator's Note

Two feline goddesses walk hand in hand: Mafdet, cheetah-headed, holding up a bleeding heart, and Bastet, grey and cat-headed, raising her s…

Curator's Note

St. Clvtch gives the warrior spirit within him an ancestral face: a Benin-inspired mask honouring his Edo roots, worn over a body in heavy …

Curator's Note

For Yeko, the mask is where a people and their gods meet. Source draws a face in profile built entirely from pattern, cowries, eyes and wav…