After Round One by Deolu Femi
Explore Mondoir Studio
Medium: Cardstock (paper)
Dimensions: 121.92 x 121.92 cm
Year: 2025
Price: $1450.00 USD
Status: available
“After Round One” reflects on African childhood games, those moments of laughter, competition, and triumph that carried lessons beyond play. Inspired by Yoruba childhood games, this work captures the bond of friendship, resilience, and joy that shaped how we learned to compete, connect, and belong. Series Title: Before PlayStation and Xbox Artwork Title: After Round One Dimensions: 4 x 4 ft Art Type: Paper Layering (relief sculpture) Medium: Cardstock and acrylic Date: November, 2025
Why collect this work?
Three closely grouped children turn a bare tabletop into a social arena. Enlarged hands, compressed spacing, and divergent expressions make the aftermath of play legible without showing the game itself.
- Femi states that he uses layered paper to reconstruct memories of everyday life in Nigeria. That intention clarifies the retrospective frame here, though rivalry, amusement, and negotiation remain visible possibilities rather than fixed meanings.
- One child reaches across the table, another raises a thumb, and the third braces one hand while opening his mouth. These distinct gestures suspend the scene between celebration, disagreement, and preparations for another round.
- Catalogue metadata identifies cardstock and acrylic arranged as paper relief. The photograph shows nested outlines dividing faces, shirts, and hands into tonal planes, a graphic structure that stresses selection and assembly rather than seamless realism.
- The artist places the work in the series “Before PlayStation and Xbox” and describes Yoruba childhood games as its prompt. It can therefore anchor discussion of how shared play is remembered through bodies, proximity, and unwritten rules rather than depicted equipment.
About the Artist
Deolu Femi
Deolu Femi is an artist on Mondoir Studio. Artistic discipline: mixed-media (paper layering and paper quilling). Based in Lagos, Nigeria.
Nationality: Nigerian
My work is a reflection on memory, daily activities, experiences and the ways our experiences shape who we are.
