Arranged Marriage

Artwork story

'Arranged Marriage' is a hyperrealistic portrait in charcoal and colored pencil on paper. It features an unclad figure turning away from the viewer, denying full access to her. Atop her head, a red 'gele' sits in visible disarray, forced on against her will. The 'gele' usually signals pride and ceremonial beauty, here its elegance is disrupted. The piece aims to expose the cost of tradition enforced at the expense of dignity and voice.

"Arranged Marriage" grew out of an ideological shift I've been living through. A shift from the unquestioning sense of belonging I held in my youth to a more critical, adult awareness of social conformity. The practice of forced unions has grown rare, but it remains part of the cultural memory I was raised within, and looking closer at it has changed how I see tradition: as something that can nurture identity and continuity, but that has also asked some people to surrender agency in its name.
I wanted to give that cost a body. So I used the unclad figure as a metaphor for dispossession, stripped of dignity and self-determination. Still she asserts a quiet defiance, turning away and denying the viewer full access to her.
The 'gele', rendered in colored pencil, is central to the piece. It is typically a symbol of pride and ceremonial beauty in South Western Nigeria and broader West African culture. It appears here in visible disarray, forced onto her head, disrupting it's elegance.
This piece is not a rejection of culture. It is an attempt to open honest conversation about the unspoken burdens some traditions have asked people to carry, and what it costs to preserve them.