From 11 - 25 February 2023, Omenka Gallery will present Road Less Travelled, a joint exhibition of recent work by emerging contemporary artists Derek Jahyem Jombo-Ogboi and Olubankole Olabode.
Jombo-Ogboi draws influences from his birth and childhood in Benin, to address issues surrounding identity, ethnicity and status. His stylistic direction has also been shaped by the classical masters and their approach to the human figure.
Painting primarily on canvas, he is similarly adept at graffiti and auditory mediums. In his painting, Jombo-Ogboi exhibits a calm academic realism finely blended with elements of the surreal. Heavily laden with metaphors,his work is distinguishable by its complex layers of interwoven narratives, an exceptional approach to composition, colour, space and light as well as a deftness in capturing his figures with empathy.
Olabode explores a diversity of media ranging from pastels, graphite and charcoal to pen and ink, coffee, watercolour, oil and acrylic— the latter two being his most favoured. Also a talented muralist, his work centres on the religious and socio-political. In promoting critical thought and engaging conversations, Olabode employs satire as well as symbolic references as metaphors in addressing pertinent issues affecting Africa and her related diaspora. More recently, his body functions as the cynosure in paintings that at once become tools to interrogate, dismantle or reinforce often neglected societal values and knowledge systems.
