Ten Ten by Deolu Femi
Explore Mondoir Studio
Medium: Paper
Dimensions: 36 x 48 in
Year: 2025
Status: available
This series is inspired by the traditional childhood games many Nigerians grew up with, games that are fading today. Tinko Tinko, Ten Ten, Suwe and others weren’t just play; they taught us friendship, confidence, and how to belong. These artworks revisit those memories to show how these simple games shaped our identity and connected us to our community. I want viewers to feel nostalgia, warmth, and the joy of shared childhood moments, and to remember the cultural value hidden in the games we once played.
Why collect this work?
Two facing figures hold a hand game in suspension. Their near symmetry turns a fleeting exchange into a study of coordination, attention and shared knowledge.
- Femi describes cutting and layering paper as a way to reconstruct memory. Here, that approach supports his stated return to Nigerian childhood games and their role in forming social bonds.
- In the photograph, bent legs and raised hands create a compact rhythm across the yellow ground. Differences in dress and gesture interrupt the symmetry, keeping the encounter reciprocal rather than mirrored.
- Catalogued as mixed media on paper, the work uses outlined, overlapping shapes that appear slightly raised in the photograph. Paper allows bodies, clothing and facial details to be built from discrete contours, echoing the game’s sequence of coordinated actions.
- Made in 2025, Ten Ten treats an everyday Nigerian game as cultural knowledge carried through bodies rather than formal instruction. Its fixed gestures preserve not the game’s full rules, but the face-to-face relation through which they pass.
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.
