Fashion as an identity takes centre stage in artist, Olumide Oresegun’s canvas as his recent works capture native African, diaspora and western textures.

Oresegun, whose paintings of hyperrealism, in the nearly two decades of his career, has traversed the African and global art market, brings critical narrative onto the black fashion scene.

During a recent chat, the artist said his current area of focus looks at the synergies between African fashion with western style, Diasporic person, identity and what he described as “translocalism.”

In quite a number of the works in preview, Oresegun maintains his peculiar subjects in the youthful age bracket, while also appropriating the darkened skin technique tonal identity peculiar to his signature. Perhaps, the young ladies, as subjects of most the paintings in the works under review, create a bridge of generational shift in the artist’s focus as regards projecting native African fashion.

Among such paintings is Omoge Eko, a threesome of bold close view of young ladies that clearly displays native African beauty. While Omoge Eko displays the variations in ‘gele’ (headwear of
Nigerian origin) of the young ladies, the beauty of the darkened skins of the ladies appears more of pride. In fact, Omoge Eko comes as a potential promotional material in discouraging the mentality of skin bleaching, among women of African descents.

In another painting titled Show Time, Olumide captures the gele fashion in four different styles. For those who understand the languages of gele, it could be complex to identify any of the styles in the traditional headwear fashion traced to Yoruba origin. These are freestyles that most young women often experiment with, no doubt. However, followers of the gele fashion would argue that most freestyles come when the wearers are short of knowledge in the art of wrapping the gele.

And if you don’t want to get into the deep styles of gele, another piece of two ladies titled ‘Side Attraction’ offers window in the simple model of tying the headwear. In fact, the painting, which also provide the synergy between western and African styles simplifies gele, appropriating it in the scarf moulding form.

“The gele is a simple traditional Nigerian head wrap that has undergone a dramatic transformation in the Diaspora, with the correlation between high ethnic identity and self esteem issues in world, especially among the black in the Diaspora,” Oresegun stated. He noted the importance of ensuring the continuation of the people’s heritage through subsequent generations. Oresegun added that the native African headwear has undergone a process often practised out of fear of losing individual ethnic heritage in the western world with “long history of immigration and positive integration into the western culture.”

In his research ahead of putting the paintings together, Oresegun found out how most people’s understanding of native dress believe that an individual use of ethnic attire is related to their level of assimilation into the mainstream culture. Such perception in native fashion, he said also serves as material embodiment of ethnicity and social structure.

Further in his study of the subject, the artist explained that many young individuals choose to abandon ethnic identity to visually signify their incorporation of the mainstream culture. He added that study conducted on ethnic African also showed more clinical implications associated with wearing ethnic attire.

While the diaspora’s connection with native African dresses is not strong, at least from the African American perspective, quite some flashes have been seen in films and musical contents. For example, Beyoncé’s ‘Black Is King’ film, in which gele featured prominently as one of the costumes.

Strengthening his spot on the exhibition circuits of contemporary African art, in the Diaspora, Oresegun showed at Spectrum Miami, U.S, late 2022. Also, from June-September of the same year, he showed in an exhibition titled Patterns Perspective at Muzeo Museum, Anaheim, California, U.S. His works have featured in quite a number of international spaces, including auctions of
Arthouse Contemporary, in Lagos and Sotheby’s in London, among others.

Trained at School of Art Design and Printing, Yaba College of Technology, Lagos, where he graduated with Distinction in Painting, Oresegun, in 2011 had his debut solo exhibition titled, Moment of Reason, at Mydrim Gallery, Lagos.