Ndidi Emefiele: SKIN + MASKS, Kavi Gupta | Elizabeth St.

  • Ndidi Emefiele (b. 1987, Nigeria) is a multimedia painter whose work centers the representation of Black female bodies in empowered...

    Ndidi Emefiele (b. 1987, Nigeria) is a multimedia painter whose work centers the representation of Black female bodies in empowered and positive circumstances. Her portraits express a distinctly feminine and African diasporic perspective independent of the male and/or colonial art historic gaze. 

     

    “Growing up in a masculine society where women are considered lower than men, you have people who come by and diminish you,” Emefiele says. “I want to paint women, and highlight them, and position them in the best possible ways.” 

    Emefiele’s early portraits featured figures endowed with enlarged heads and giant spectacles. These images protested against conditions for women in Nigeria, reacting against the depiction of females in servile roles. The work portrayed women in bold roles, having the best time. 

     

    As her practice has evolved, Emefiele has become equally interested in examining and portraying the internal worlds of her figures, along with external realities. Her newest portraits bring the figures’ inner emotional states to the forefront of the narrative. 

     

    After experience a profound personal family loss, her thoughts turned much more to ideas of love and life and death. Her figures are now often portrayed in the nude, even while in crowded situations. For Emefiele, revealing the skin is a way to convey a sense of loss, and to portray the emptiness of being. 

     

    Emefiele’s continues to mobilize exaggerated proportions in symbolic ways that give her paintings a personal feeling, allowing viewers to connect with them on an emotional level. 

     

    The multi-layered conceptual complexity of the work is mirrored in Emefiele’s use of non-traditional materials such as printed fabrics, vintage cloth, mesh, belts, and even compact discs, which she uses for her figures’ eyes. These found materials bring texture and dimension to the work, as well as a feeling of meaningful connection to the physical environment in which they are made. 

     

    Emefiele lives and works in North Hampton, UK.