Winged Breath by Tayo Explore Mondoir Studio Medium: Oil on canvas Dimensions: 120 x 140 cm Year: 2024 Price: $7000.00 USD Status: available A submerged figure lifts his face toward a wavering surface while pale birds move through the water around him. The birds suggest breath made visible: release, spirit of sound mind, power, love and peace beyond the possibility of pressure. The work does not present surrender as defeat. Instead, stillness becomes an active form of endurance, and the closed eyes register an inward concentration before emergence. Why collect this work?The figure’s face rises toward a wavering boundary while two pale birds cross the surrounding blue, compressing submersion and flight into an unresolved image of endurance. Tayo describes his underwater portraits as bodies under pressure and his birds as signs of release and change. Here, the upward tilt and closed eyes sustain that intention, but do not confirm whether emergence will follow.In the photograph, the dark head and torso dominate the left side, while angled wings activate the right. Bright ripples and scattered bubbles connect these unequal forms, making stillness feel concentrated rather than passive.The documented oil on canvas supports finely graduated modelling and strong contrasts here. Dark facial contours, hard points of reflected light and pale, seemingly translucent wings establish distinct visual weights without requiring literal spatial coherence.This painting is significant for how it redirects portraiture from likeness toward a threshold state. Its uncertain boundary between water and air permits endurance to remain neither defeat nor uncomplicated triumph. About the ArtistTayo Tayo is an artist on Mondoir Studio. Artistic discipline: painting. Based in Ufa, RU. Nationality: Nigerian My paintings begin with the face and the body, but I am less interested in likeness than in what pressure reveals.
