Raised to Endure, Not to Speak by Iyanuoluwa Babalola
Explore Mondoir Studio
Medium: Acrylic on Canvas
Dimensions: 66.04 x 71.12 cm
Year: 2026
Price: $500.00 USD
Status: available
Raised to Endure, Not to Speak explores how silence is often learned before it becomes a choice. The work is rooted in my experience of being too silent enduring hurt from friends and family without expressing how their actions affected me, and often placing other people’s feelings before my own. Even as a child, I sometimes hesitated to ask for what I needed because I feared becoming a burden. I created this piece to question the belief that strength is measured by how much pain we can silently endure. The repeated figures represent how patterns of silence and endurance can become subconscious behaviours that we pass on to those we nurture. Children observe how we handle pain, conflict, and vulnerability, and may learn to repeat those same patterns. Rather than glorifying endurance, I want the audience to see that speaking about what hurts us does not necessarily make us weak, difficult, or ungrateful. Sometimes, acknowledging what we feel is the first step toward understanding ourselves and breaking patterns that should not be passed on. The work encourages viewers to reflect on the silence they have accepted and what they may unknowingly be teaching the next generation. And finally, the work asks: “What if true strength begins the moment we choose to speak?”
Why collect this work?
Ropes bind bodies, vessels and box-like loads into one compressed structure, turning endurance from an individual posture into a pattern visibly carried across generations.
- Babalola describes his practice as concerned with healing, identity and cultural memory. Here, his stated aim is specific: to question the treatment of silent suffering as strength.
- In the photograph, a masked central figure bends beneath stacked objects while smaller figures repeat behind. A large open-mouthed profile counters the covered mouth, setting suppressed speech against forceful expression.
- The documented acrylic on canvas supports sharp pale contours over a predominantly blue field. These highlights make the looping ropes legible across overlapping bodies and burdens, tightening the crowded composition.
- The painting is especially pertinent for examining how learned conduct is pictured rather than merely narrated: repetition, shifts of scale and contrasting mouths frame silence as something modeled for children, not simply chosen.
About the Artist
Iyanuoluwa Babalola
Iyanuoluwa Babalola is an artist on Mondoir Studio. Artistic discipline: Painting/ Acrylic and on Canvas. Based in Lagos, NG.
Nationality: Nigerian
My art explores healing, identity, cultural memory, and moral consciousness through expressive painting and visual storytelling.
