Fausat Olanike Ladokun’s Portrait Practice Explores Identity, Migration, and the Lived Realities of Black Women

Fausat Olanike Ladokun is a contemporary digital artist whose practice centres on female portraiture as a form of storytelling. Her work focuses on the lived experiences of Black women, using visual stillness and subtle detail to communicate narratives often overlooked in mainstream visual culture.

Her portraits are informed by personal conversations, cultural memory, and close observation. Works such as Threaded Routes, Back to Our Roots, and Flags Are Us explore themes of migration, identity, and belonging, while pieces including Feelings and Nina reflect inner states, vulnerability, and self-recognition. Across her practice, Fausat approaches her subjects as individuals rather than symbols, allowing expression and presence to carry emotional depth.

Since establishing her professional practice, Fausat has participated in over eight exhibitions, primarily across the United Kingdom, with additional international exposure through an exhibition in Brazil. Her exhibitions are often thematically driven and socially engaged, including shows held during Black History Month, as well as exhibitions addressing migration and immigration, Black hair as cultural identity, and the marginalisation of diverse expressions of Black beauty.

Her work has gained growing media and institutional visibility. Fausat has been featured in Visual Art Journal and selected for display on a New York Times Square digital billboard. She is also recognised as part of the Legacy Artists: Global Artist Series, which highlights artists contributing meaningfully to contemporary cultural discourse.

One of her most recognised bodies of work, The Right to Be Seen, encapsulates her wider artistic focus. Through this series, Fausat positions portraiture as an act of affirmation, asserting visibility as both a personal and cultural right.

Across exhibitions and public platforms, her work invites viewers to slow down and look closely. By placing Black women at the centre of the frame, Fausat challenges assumptions about visibility, value, and representation within contemporary art.