Monilola Olayemi Ilupeju
Truce, 2023
Monilola Olayemi Ilupeju, Truce, 2023, Courtesy A plus A Gallery
Monilola Olayemi Ilupeju (*1996, Takoma Park, Maryland, US) uses painting, installation, moving image, text and performance to transfer intimate and personal experiences of connection, violence and healing to broader political contexts. She thereby examines to what extent art – along with its inherent ambiguity – is capable of countering political and inner distortions: how can it shape the world, acting as a corrective to a perception warped by external influences or a sense of intuition that has been lost?
For her work Truce the artist painted two human-sized bodies on loose canvas before cutting them out. The nude figures stand opposite each other, holding one another by the arms, which have been impossibly elongated. One person is looking at the other, while the gaze of the second is directed towards the viewers. The bodies appear at once delicate and strong, malleable and resistant. The title of the work refers to an ambivalent moment of pause within ongoing conflict, a precarious moment harboring both the hope for a subsequent long-term peace and the danger of further hostilities.