Toyin Odutola

A Colonized Mind

Senior exit show (2008) in which I aimed to explore mythological representations of African women and motifs in African folklore from a Western Imperial perspective. Contentional spheres in the series run the gamut from the religious, sexual, political, and social institutions of duality in European, male perception. Three key concepts employed to explore these realms of filtered perception are ropes, horns, and rings. The ropes commentate on the rift between the past and present representations of African female sexuality, as well as the dynamic tension and in flux nature often accompanying changes in individual identity and sexual agency. The horns mock the ideas of religious and secular morality and intellectualism, catering to both debauchery and acknowledgement of the male gaze as a tool for empowerment, while wallowing in the acquiring of intellect par to male dominance, thus gaining the freedom to enact the same exploitative, objectified gaze back at the andro-centric preconception itself. Finally, the rings, used in the series to replace areas where vital limps would be presented, are meant to evoke a sense of helplessness and phantom limp syndrome as metaphor for lack of control and imposed innocence. Both the rings and rope motifs are similar in extrapolating on the idea of enclosure as in fact forced exposure. Along this same chord, domination (particularly of self and body by external forces) indicates lack of ownership concerning one's body and representation. There is meant to be a palpable tension throughout the series, even in the choice of material (drawing directly on the wood, as an act of engraving), with my ideas of African womanhood and mythology, I hoped to penetrate the viewer's perception and question WHO the subjects presented are instead of WHAT they are.