Revolving Art Incubator’s “Four Women” Reconsiders Female Gender Norms

POSTED IN Art, Art history, Culture, Drawn art, Painting
By Adefoyeke Ajao
The Revolving Art Incubator’s recently-opened exhibition, ‘Four Women’, is a reflection on the
situation of females within contemporary societies. Its dominant theme is that those who were
once regarded as the weaker sex are beginning to hold their own – albeit with challenges.

 

 

According to the curator Jumoke Sanwo, “women in contemporary times are undergoing a
reconsideration of their place in the world and [are] re-evaluating [the] systems reinforcing the
status quo such as patriarchy and local customs, this directly engages processes such as
colonization, gender inequality, migration, cultural domination through religious structures and
otherness which has tampered with our essential beings”. Four Women queries these
traditional roles and expectations through the candid introspection of four female artists:
Kehinde Awofeso, Stacey Okparavero, Olubunmi Oyesanya Ayaoge, and Adejoke Tugbiyele.

 

 

The exhibition of paintings, photographs and performance, documents themes including
identity, patriarchy, sexuality and timidity. Tugbiyele, through her performance piece “The
Queen and Her Throne” envisions a state where women learn to love themselves and embrace
their peculiarities regardless of what others may think. Awofeso also toes a similar path and
with her paintings, pushes the limits of gender norms and challenges their rigidity.

 

 

Okparavero, in her “We the king series”, addresses eroded values amongst artists. Depicting
them as kings, she decries the artist’s reluctance to take control of his/her future, instead ceding
responsibility to capitalists who have infiltrated the art ecosystem. According to her, “it is
madness for kings to choose to live as slaves, for every time you resist the truth your choice is
made.”

 

 

Oyesanya Ayaoge, on the other hand, considers the politics of exclusion that exiles people living
with disabilities from society and how they willingly or unwillingly rely on others to make
decisions on their behalf. She relates this to the fate of women within society through works
such as “Child Bride Bill Procrastination” and “Polygamy”.

 

 

 

The message from these four female artists is quite simple: women are displeased about getting
the short end of the stick in largely patriarchal societies and they are beginning to consider the
many ways they can do something about it.

 

 

 

‘Four Women’ is at the Revolving Art Incubator in Victoria Island until April 12th, 2018.
Share
this article
1,451Total views