Facing the Unfamiliar: The composite figures of Yomi Orimoloye
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Ottawa-based artist Yomi Orimoloye (b. 1996, Ondo, Nigeria) paints transformation as it is processed by the individual, asking not only who they are, but who they want to become. At first glance, his composite portraits are reminiscent of cubism, with a contemporary twist. However, his bright palette, distinctive lines, and subject matter tell a very different story, jolting the style into conversations about identity formation and transformation, from confusion to affirmation. His collage-like portraits and figures – human or abstract – depict the various emotions that converge when contemplating change.
I had the pleasure of visiting Yomi in his studio at Studio Space Ottawa, where he spends about 20 hours a week executing his paintings (on top of being a full-time engineer!). I went into the interview knowing I would meet a skilled painter, but the person I found was so much more: Orimoloye is a deeply thoughtful, organized, and intentional artist. Leaving nothing to chance, he carefully designs each work digitally and conducts colour studies before putting paint to canvas. Design and concept are constantly in sync in his works, making it so that my eyes could hardly stop searching his compositions for new meanings to uncover.
In this article, I go over my favourite works of his from 2022 to 2024, tracing his reflection on the self, perpetually in flux.
Yomi Orimoloye, Untitled, 2024. Oil on canvas, 23.75” x 24”
Although Orimoloye’s paintings appear to represent multiple people, they typically have only one figure that has been fragmented, both physically and aesthetically. Gender, skin tone, style, and mood ebb and flow. Orimoloye defines this fragmentation as representing the difficulty in finding yourself. When I asked him, “As you get to know yourself, do you see the figures becoming whole?”, he responded: “I think they will remain complex, because part of growing up and knowing yourself is accepting how multifaceted we are, and the fact that we really absorb a lot of different things. I consume a lot of music, a lot of art. It becomes part of you. You consume culture.”
Among his many inspirations, Orimoloye notes Toyin Ojih Odutola and Kerry James Marshall, who emphasize blackness through exaggerated values and intricate mark-making, giving their work a powerful, graphic quality. Echoing Marshall and Odutola’s marriage of strong aesthetics and narratives, Orimoloye portrays the contradictory feelings inherent to growing up in a world where identity is worn externally and bears great meaning. In a world like this, the internal self is indissociable from the external self. His own identity, mirrored in his work, is rooted in identifiers such as his blackness, his gender, and his age, and we see his figures try on different versions of this identity, until one fits. From music to painters, and to fashion to body language, we see his process of becoming unfold before us, and the result is a sort of collage of a human being.
Untitled is perhaps the clearest illustration of this process. Although I am usually disappointed by artists who choose not to title their works, I find that in this particular example, the absence of a title enhances the identity confusion evident in the work. Several figures – the exact number of which I can’t quite figure out – converge into a colourful, bizarre mass at the center of the painting. The most identifiable figures are those on the left and right, like buns on this identity sandwich. Identifiers of race (black skin, coily hair) and personal style (backwards baseball cap) loosely allude to the presence of an individual, but overall, this mish-mash of a person feels messy. The figures facing left, looking towards the past, and the bizarre colours, suggest that the pressure to mirror external signifiers of coolness or success ultimately clouds the individual, stunting their development.
Similarly, Birthday Boy, suggests the anxiety that accompanies growing older. Masks and a party hat suggest celebration, but the aloof, seemingly absent countenance of the figure mutes the happy tone. Two identifiably human faces are mixed with a mask and a bizarre yellow, clownish face. The three half-baked eyes contrast the mask’s exaggerated, creepy smile. Razor-thin ribbons tie the faces together like a neat birthday package, but I can’t help but feel like they’d hurt, digging into the skin surface like the uncomfortable dollar store party hats seldom tolerated for longer than a photo op.
Yomi Orimoloye, Birthday Boy, 2023. Acrylic on Canvas, 30” x 30”
Similar to fables or parables, Orimoloye’s paintings can also be understood as the illustration of a personal struggle associated with a moral. The titles, often familiar because they reference cultural clichés, pop culture references, or pop psychology, are broad enough to appeal to various audiences – from the anxious and introspective to young black men, young (or not-so-young) adults still learning who they are, pleasure-seekers, self-growth enthusiasts, and more. Being faced with figures captured in a process of becoming is a humanizing and arresting experience.
In Snap, Crackle, Pop, the weight of external expectations is illustrated as noise, but the figure is able to ignore it. The title itself references the crackling sound of Rice Krispy cereal popping in milk, and the big red mouth, judgmental eyebrow, and cartoonish parrot evoke the incessant chatter of others’ opinions. However, each of these is cut off, literally, by other shapes, and the central figure appears nonchalant. Chewing his gum, blowing a bubble, and minding his business, he reduces the noise to a subtle hum – ever-present but easy to ignore.
Yomi Orimoloye, Snap, Crackle, Pop, 2024. Acrylic on Canvas, 20” x 25.25”
Similarly, Pepper’s Ghost uses the gaze to depict both self-consciousness and defiance in self-presentation. A fractured figure applies lipstick, and their four eyes carry their gaze from their compact to us. One eye, the smaller one towards the center of the composition, appears worried, as if fearing our judgment, whereas another larger eye, hovering above it, stares intently at us, as if to challenge our gaze.
Yomi Orimoloye, Pepper’s Ghost, 2023. Acrylic on Canvas, 28” x 28”
Because of the evident self-awareness and growth visible in the progression of his works, one of the questions I asked Orimoloye was “does painting make you a better person?” I was met with a grin, an uncertain laugh, and finally, “I don’t think so.” But I disagree (trust me, I’m an expert). The reason I inquired is because as an outsider, one of the biggest transformations I see in his work is his own: as his practice progresses, he leans increasingly into complex versions of the self, revealing a process rooted in introspection and self-acceptance. Will this Make Me Good?, Pleasure Principle, and On Darning and The Beauty of Worn Clothes, illustrate this.
Yomi Orimoloye, Will This Make Me Good?, 2024. Acrylic on Canvas, 19.625” x 25.75”
Will this Make me Good? is one of the few of Orimoloye’s pieces in which only one face appears. Rather than several visually competing, a single face is divided, like many windows into spiraling thoughts. The design follows a spiral pattern, leading the eye towards the center of the composition, passing by a smiley pill, a hazy eye, and a mouth in the process of opening. The pristine blocks of colour are soiled with splatters of paint, suggesting an unclear state of mind. In this work, Orimoloye reflects on the desire to be “good” – whether morally or emotionally – and the cynicism and desperation that can accompany attempts to do so. In Pleasure Principle, the face progressively gets heavier as your eye slides towards the chin, pointing down, exhausted. Referencing a psychoanalytic concept, Pleasure Principle questions the tension involved with constantly seeking and/or being deprived of primal impulses such as sexual desire, hunger, thirst, and anger. Attempting to strike the perfect balance between wants and needs, both internally and socially determined, leaves the self in a constant state of confusion and disappointment, far removed from pleasure and wellbeing itself.
Yomi Orimoloye, Pleasure Principle, 2023. Acrylic on Canvas, 28.5” x 28.5”
My favourite work of Yomi’s, and a beautiful one to end on, is On Darning, and the Beauty of Worn Clothes (2023). This painting represents a new direction in Orimoloye’s work, of which I hope to see more. It depicts a whole figure, from head to toe, being sewn back together by its own shadow. The composition of the work is playful and precise from the figure’s clown-like smile to its bony fingers, in which every muscle is activated; each phalange intentionally placed to conduct a delicate operation. The sharp needle, angular thread, and the strong diagonal crossing the painting from the upper right to the lower left, reveal a calculated, exacting process and a sharp outcome. Orimoloye explained that seeing damaged ancient Roman and Greek sculptures at the Louvre, like the Venus de Milo, which have long been revered as ideals of the human form, inspired this work. The painted figure’s sculptural torso, severed hand and detached upper arm, instead of diminishing its value, thus raise it to the status of an irreplaceable work of art. Because it is fragmented, his and his shadow’s limbs become one, appearing as though the central figure is mending himself. The shadow self, defined in psychoanalysis as the parts of one’s self that are difficult to accept, is joined to the external self, creating a fragmented, yet perfect, whole.
Yomi Orimoloye, On Darning, and the Beauty of Worn Clothes, 2022. Acrylic on Canvas, 26” x 34”
When I conducted this interview, Orimoloye was working on a series of abstract works, sharing a similar aesthetic to his figurative style, for a solo exhibition. Yomi Orimoloye | New Works has since opened at Wall Space Gallery, and closes on September 28th. His work is also included in Inviting the Conflict at the Ottawa Art Gallery until October 20th, and will be included in City of Ottawa Collection - 2024 Additions from December 5th to February 23rd.
In addition to being represented by Wall Space Gallery, Orimoloye’s work can also be found through Good Black Art, a New-York based company dedicated to championing Black artistry and history. Find him at y0mi.com or @orimsyomi.
