Naija Boy
Omotayo, Age 18
For my A-level final piece installation, I created this piece to mirror the journey I took whilst exploring cultural identity. I was inspired by artists Kehinde Wiley and Njideka Akunyili Crosby, and I wanted to implement the different ways in which they expressed their own cultural portrayals in this piece. I wanted to portray parts of my Nigerian heritage with the use of the traditional fabrics. I also created the collage in the style of Njideka Akunyili Crosby to show a timeline of my adventure through culture. The form and structure of this piece was as a result of studies of high renaissance art, and I used gold leaf to highlight the pattern in the dashiki (shirt) to put emphasis on the origins of the fabric.