Ressentiment by Olumide Ajayi
Explore Mondoir Studio
Medium: Acrylic on Canvas
Dimensions: 152.4 x 213.4 cm
Year: 2025
Price: $6500.00 USD
Status: available
This painting, part of my "Hunging Business" series, is an open wound and a love letter to a sidewalk that I have never really known. Skater, with his mix of concrete chaos and ballet grace, always called me, but life has always given me other scenarios. Look at my central figure: I am in the bath, or at least my intention in colored blocks is. I think "blue sky thought" while being anchored by the red action, framed by green blocks (go!). Yet, around me are the masters: the guys who know, captured in an effective line stroke and effortless. They move through the space while I, with my bright red legs and blue spirit, seem stuck on a white platform, looking at my internal tic-tac clock. The green skateboards on the periphery make fun of my hesitation. The scene is full of pleasure, but I feel the weight of missed turns. Maybe one day, but for now, this canvas is where I skate, and it hurts a little.
Why collect this work?
A rigid central figure divides the composition while two skateboarders tilt at its edges, making surrounding motion a measure of hesitation rather than freedom.
- Ajayi states that his paintings address less obvious feelings through the body. Here, the segmented, upright figure supports that aim without reducing the scene to a diagnosis or fixed narrative.
- In the photograph, bent skaters, angled boards and small birds surround a frontal figure standing on a pale base. Crossed legs imply possible movement, but the strong vertical axis keeps the body visually anchored.
- The catalogue identifies acrylic on canvas. Broad, bounded colour areas give the central body graphic weight, while the skaters’ largely pale interiors make their gestures read as quick outlines against the surrounding field.
- The artist describes Ressentiment as part of his “Hunging Business” series and connects it to skateboarding admired but not directly experienced. That distance makes the painting pertinent to questions of spectatorship, aspiration and the limits of imagined participation.
About the Artist
Olumide Ajayi
Olumide Ajayi is an artist on Mondoir Studio. Artistic discipline: Painter. Mixed Media. Based in Ibadan, NG.
Nationality: Nigerian
My work seeks to embrace complex feelings, giving them a canvas to breathe, shift, and resonate.
