Gafar Oluwabori

2021

Born and working in Nigeria, the acrylic on canvas portraits of Gafar Oluwabori are nothing near insipid.

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In his inquisition of attempting to sought various approaches of altering human forms into abstract arrangements. Oluwabori creates both colourful and vibrant renditions of women’s faces, with equally pulsating backgrounds.

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Playing very close to the peripheries of flatness and adding dimensionality through his depictions of facial features, the portraits of Oluwabori take the form of, or one could even say mimic the colour by numbers structure of kids and adult colouring and painting manuals and books.

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The portraits are made up of band like abstracted forms that can be regarded as to portray a dissection or express how multifaceted the physical, genetic and chemical makeup of human beings is.

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Taking the shape of ligaments which are bands of elastic tissue that forms around your joints and serve to hold, support, and limit movement in the body the bands feature as the most well represented forms in the paintings with some of them being inscribed with singular shapes or dramatic patterns.

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The bands are also reminiscent of muscles which are defined as a band or bundle of fibrous tissue present in the human body that assists with movement and maintain the positioned parts of the body, the colourful bands portrayed by Oluwabori may function as to hold the facial features, the gaze, the mood, the positive energy and the personality of his sitters together.