Scars and Wisdom by Deolu Femi
Explore Mondoir Studio
Medium: Cardstock (paper)
Dimensions: 91.44 x 121.92 cm
Year: 2025
Price: $1700.00 USD
Status: available
“Scars and Wisdom” is about how experience truly shapes us as Africans and as individuals. Growing up and living in Lagos, I have learned that knowledge does not always come from books or formal learning. Many of the things we know come from what we have lived through, the mistakes we made, the pain we endured, and the situations that tested us. This work reflects the idea that scars are not just marks of suffering, but signs of learning. In our society, we often move forward without time to heal properly. We are expected to be strong, to survive, and to keep going. Over time, this creates scars, emotional and physical, that quietly become part of who we are. Rather than hiding these scars, this piece acknowledges them as evidence of growth. They show where life has shaped us, where we were challenged, and where we gained wisdom. The work also speaks to hope, the belief that beauty, strength, and clarity can come out of even the hardest situations. “Scars and Wisdom 2” reminds us that becoming is not about avoiding pain, but about learning from it and allowing it to shape us into something stronger and more aware. Series Title: Becoming; The African way of knowing Artwork Title: Scars and Wisdom 2 Dimensions: 36 x 48 inches framed Art Type: Paper Layering (relief sculpture) Medium: Cardstock and acrylic Date: December, 2025.
Why collect this work?
A bowed reader is built from irregular, nested contours, making the body appear accumulated rather than simply depicted. The open book becomes a counterweight: knowledge is held both on the page and across the figure.
- Femi describes paper layering as a way to reconstruct memory and identity. Here, that stated concern helps explain why the figure is divided into many adjoining shapes, although their effect remains open to interpretation.
- In the photograph, the lowered face, weighted shoulders and hands anchored to the book establish concentrated stillness. Flowering stems rise along the edges, setting organic growth against the body’s scar-like segmentation.
- The catalogue documents cardstock and acrylic. Cut and layered paper makes contour physically structural, while narrow quilled flowers introduce tighter lines and repeated coils beside the broad planes of the figure.
- Encountering this work brings together two models of learning: reading as formal study and bodily marks as lived knowledge. That tension gives the portrait significance beyond a straightforward scene of study.
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.
