Between ornament and command

This painting does not ask for attention it demands it, a type of quality that makes people stop and look at a work of art. This was showcased at Berj Art Gallery in Accra as part of the exhibition “Where Cloth Becomes Voice” from June 6 to 9 2022, it is the work of Goodluck Jane, a multimedia visual artist. This is a picture of a person, precisely a woman from the side view, with an exaggerated headgear.

The woman’s headgear you cannot miss because it is so big and very embellished. It is like a monument that she wears as a fashion statement. The headgear is like a building with layers on top of each other. Culturally, a cloth is more than fashion, it is like a book that tells you a lot about the person who wears it. The cloth can tell you about the person’s family, where they are from and their profession. The woman’s headgear is a way of talking to people without using words. The patterns on it are like words that are all jumbled up together. Each pattern is like a word that’s right next to another word. They are all squished together like words in a sentence that’s hard to understand

What is really interesting about this picture is the control, the background does not interfere with the woman’s bust. It is gold and has a special pattern. When you look from the side you do not get to see her face. She is not trying to get your, nor impress you. You can tell by looking at the painting. The textures are actually built up they are not just painted on. It is like they were put together one piece at a time. This makes the art like a building, not just a drawing. The woman in the painting looks like she is thinking about things that really happened not just fairy tale. The painting is more about the things that Jane is trying to say with her art like the idea of time and memory and how these things shape us.

The name of the exhibition is Where Cloth Becomes Voice, and it is not about giving a voice to people who do not have one. It is about realizing that these people have always had a voice it is just that their voice is hidden in the things they create like the cloth they make. The cloth has a lot to say about the people who made it. The cloth does not tell you everything at once. The cloth tells you things slowly as you look at it and think about it over time. The things the cloth says are believable because the cloth has been around for a time so it has earned the right to say these things. The cloth is the summation of the life of a person with a lot of experiences, such that when it says something you listen.

By Tajudeen Sowole