Beauty behind the scars (1) by Benjamin Omoike
Explore Mondoir Studio
Medium: Ropes, Fabrics and Acrylic on Canvas
Dimensions: 70 x 91 cm
Year: 2025
Price: $800.00 USD
Status: available
Using An Olori as a case study... An Olori (a queen or wife of a king) often embodies cultural values and traditions. A Yoruba proverb that relates to the Olori with tribal marks could be: "Ila ko pa 'mo, o si n se 'ge" (meaning: "Tribal marks do not kill a child, they are part of beauty") The traditional Yoruba view of tribal marks as a form of beautification and cultural identifier, despite the potential pain of the process. It highlights the cultural significance and acceptance of tribal marks within the Yoruba society, even though some may view them as scars. Scars are not the end of beauty, but the beginning of a deeper story. They carry the quiet testimony of survival, resilience, and transformation. What once was broken becomes a map of healing, and what once was painful becomes the texture of strength. In every scar, there is a hidden elegance — a reminder that beauty is not the absence of imperfection, but the courage to embrace it.
Why collect this work?
A frontal portrait contrasts dense facial patterning with broad dark hair, making ornament and scar visually difficult to separate and shifting attention from whether marks are beautiful to how beauty is culturally defined.
- Omoike describes his mixed-media practice as addressing African heritage, identity and resilience. In this work, those concerns are concentrated in one composed figure rather than developed through a wider narrative scene.
- In the photograph, enlarged eyes anchor a face divided between intricate repeated motifs and open passages of orange and brown. The flower and patterned clothing carry adornment beyond the skin, while the direct gaze resists a purely decorative reading.
- The catalogue records rope, fabric and acrylic on canvas. Their combination permits shifts between painted modelling, linear repetition and applied material, though the photograph cannot confirm the work’s relief or exact surface qualities.
- The catalogue identifies the figure as an Olori and connects her marks to a Yoruba proverb about beautification and cultural identity. This framing makes the portrait a focused case for examining how the same bodily mark can be read as injury, inheritance or adornment.
About the Artist
Benjamin Omoike
Benjamin Omoike is an artist on Mondoir Studio. Artistic discipline: mixed-media. Based in Ogun State , NG.
Nationality: Nigerian
His work blends abstract expression with mixed-media techniques.
