ÌRÈTÍỌ̀LA by Faith Gbadero
Explore Mondoir Studio
Medium: Oil and Acrylic on canvas
Dimensions: 19 x 23.3 in
Year: 2025
Price: $1700.00 USD
Status: available
This piece was born from a moment of stillness, a quiet observation of how we carry entire landscapes within us. I kept thinking about how we often stand between mountains we did not choose and flowers we patiently grow by ourselves. The idea came while reflecting on resilience: how we can stand tall even when life feels rugged, how we can nurture beauty in spaces that seem barren. I painted this Iretiola looking toward distant peaks, not with fear but with a calm certainty that her journey is shaping her. The mountains became symbols of the hurdles that mold her character, while the flowers represent the tenderness she refuses to abandon. Her upward gaze captures a moment of belief — belief in her own becoming. And her coral dress, soft against the rough terrain, reminds us that strength doesn’t always roar; sometimes it simply stands, breathes, and blossoms. This artwork is a celebration of that quiet power: the kind that grows where the world least expects it.
Why collect this work?
A right-facing profile aligns the sitter’s lifted gaze with an ascending mountain ridge, making hope a compositional relation between figure and landscape rather than a facial expression alone.
- Gbadero’s statement places identity, memory, and becoming at the centre of his practice. In this painting, those concerns are condensed into a single poised figure between flowers and peaks.
- In the photograph, the coral garment dominates the foreground while overlapping, earth-toned slopes compress the distance. Pale sky surrounding the head clarifies the profile and leaves visual space before the gaze.
- The catalogue records oil and acrylic on canvas. That mixed medium may enable the contrast seen here between large, simplified shapes and small accents such as the floral marks, earring, and patterned dress, though the photograph cannot identify which paint forms each passage.
- The artist’s description identifies the mountains with hurdles and the flowers with retained tenderness. The painting gives viewers a concrete test of that symbolism through the contrast between angular ridges, upright stems, and the figure’s steady profile.
About the Artist
Faith Gbadero
Faith Gbadero is an artist on Mondoir Studio. Artistic discipline: painting. Based in Ogbomoso, NG.
Nationality: Nigerian
My art is driven by a desire to understand and express the human experience through layered narratives of identity, connection, memory, and becoming.
