A face fills three quarters of the frame, cropped so closely that it cannot be ignored. The subject’s eyes are closed, lashes resting on the soft ridge of the cheeks. The nose sits like a small hill in the center; the lips—thick—are slightly parted, matte and unadorned.
On either side of the face, two round, red-orange fruits are held against the skin—one by a thumb and forefinger below the left cheek, the other cupped to the right temple. The hands are gentle, almost reverent. Light skims across the bridge of the nose and the philtrum, thinning into the shadow around the jawline.
The color palette is warm—burnished browns and copper in the skin, ember-bright orange in the fruit—rendered with a painterly texture that makes the photograph read like an oil painting case study.
There is no background to speak of; darkness is the backdrop and silence the atmosphere. The title on the wall text read Solitude at the art exhibition by Lagos State Council for Arts and Culture on the 28th of October 2024.
The art exhibition took place at freedom park hall , Lagos Nigeria aimed at showcasing the vibrant creativity of contemporary artists across all mediums.
Fine art photographer, Chidozie
Maduka builds this picture from restraint: no environment, no gaze to meet, no narrative cues beyond fruit and touch.
The tight crop forces us into proximity, making the face a landscape—nostrils like twin caves, the lips a horizon, pores and fine lines a kind of cartography.
The decision to close the eyes denies the viewer’s usual entry point and turns the portrait inward. The image is “a slow look,” where attention becomes a forced ethic.
The use of light is measured and less dramatic. It doesn’t slash; it grazes. “Faded” here isn’t exhaustion but tempo—a dimmer switch turned down until the highlights are only just enough to model form.
That softness, combined with the tactile grain, gives the photograph the intimacy of a charcoal drawing or an under-painted canvas. It’s a photograph that tempts for touch.
The two fruits are doing compositional and symbolic work. Formally, they triangulate the face: lower left, upper right, mouth in the quiet center. Their saturated orange counters the umber of the skin, setting up a warm-on-warm harmony that avoids easy contrast.
Symbolically, they are refreshingly ambiguous. In Lagos they could be oranges, tomatoes, or simply “roundness”—objects of everyday commerce. They suggest nourishment, economy, the ordinary rituals of market and kitchen. Placed against closed eyes, they also read as tenderness, a self-anointing—cool.
There is no insistence on meaning, only clues. The hands hold the fruit but also cradle the face; the gesture collapses self-care and sustenance. The subject is both model and votive—an offering to herself. The stillness is not lonely; it is sovereign. Solitude here is a resource, a room one enters and locks from the inside.
What’s persuasive is the picture’s refusal of spectacle. The beauty isn’t cosmetic, it’s elemental—skin, light, fruit, breath. In a city often photographed through noise and velocity, Maduka finds a counter-mood: Lagos, yes, but at the speed of a heartbeat.
The image is worthy to participate in a broader contemporary African portraiture that dignifies the everyday and complicates how Black skin is rendered—less gloss, more depth; less declaration, more listening.
Solitude and Faded Light in this photograph is a study in quiet abundance. By paring away context and amplifying touch, Maduka gives us a portrait that feels both private and communal: a single face that recalls the markets and kitchens of a city, a single moment that suggests a practice of care.
The photograph doesn’t shout its meaning; it breathes it. Long after you’ve stepped away, you remember the hush of those closed eyes and the small suns cupped against the skin.
