A-ARTs: Strokes of probity through ‘Lady by the Window’

'Lady by the Window' (oil on canvas, 61 x 76.2cm, and dated 2026) by Oluwapelumi Oluyemi.

By Tajudeen Sowole

WHEN artist, Oluwapelumi Oluyemi brushes through the minds of people to expose their deep thoughts, art and mental health converge. But her probity into inner thoughts of people comes with expanded identity as the artist’s established impressionist texture in figurative subjects adds freshness with abstracted contents.

Oluyemi’s brush movements belong in the signatures that can be spotted in the crowd of a million artists, when it comes to figurative paintings. For her recent works, the sense of eclectic contents appears to have stepped in with two pieces mounted on the windows of abstract impressionism.

In thematic context, the artist probes through the veil of fashion or clothing, questioning the relationship between dressing and wellbeing of whoever claims or seen to be well dressed. The index painting, Lady by the Window, as a lone subject retains the artist’s established portrait style of visible brushings.

As the three works are currently showing in a group show Are you Alright, at Creative Darlinghton, U.K,, whatever the lady looks at through the window appears like a contrast to the perceived well dressing she flaunts. However, something seems not strong enough in the visual representation of the lady, in capturing the contrast between well dress and state of mind of the subject. Darlighnton

What exactly goes on in the mind of the Lady by the Window? Cutting the suspense short are two works that expose the Girl’s inner thoughts through the window. The two pieces, serialised as A Little Bit of That I and II, take the search for inner minds to some extra realm outside regular thoughts. Each of the two series display complex imageries with layers of vertical and horizontal lines, perhaps a depiction of state of confusion arising from inner thoughts of a troubled mind.

For A Little Bit of That I, viewers are taken through one of those foggy moments that crosses one’s mind, in either a dream or nightmare. An imposing bold, but obscured face, at the top left corner of the canvas, looking down to some uncoordinated figures and other elements, presents a message of confusion. Even within the context of an abstraction, the piece, which struggles between colours, shades and light radiates mystery and mysticism.

Trying to expose the lady’s inner thoughts, A Little Bit of that II escalates the spiritual context. Brushed in strokes of many colours, the piece depicts a foreground of figurative image, swallowed by the diverse brush movements of sceneries in the background, all leading to no specific destination of thoughts. As the three works connect each other, thematically, presenting animated storytelling, they also suggest that human minds are controlled by unforeseen spiritual force.

Back to the disconnection between well dress and state of mind of the subject. Contextually, Oluyemi’s Lady by the Window could have fitted into any other theme as her dressing does not explicitly suggest “well dressed’, in broader sense. The contrast between the lady’s scanty dressing and the essence of the theme is too wide, weakening the central focus of the three works. Perhaps, a more elaborately dressed lady would have been more appropriate in strengthening the theme.

In her impressionist identity, Oluyemi’s strokes in figurative female paintings always have something in common. Whoever was the model used in nearly all her paintings in the past must be a body builder fan, so one thought. The Lady by the Window painting seemed to have confirmed that critical suspicion of the artist’s love for women with masculine body frame and facial texture.

Every artist has their unique identity in figurative paintings, irrespective of the subject’s gender. From cheek bones to shoulder frames, Oluyemi’s ladies are uniquely painted with less softness of the female gender. And why such a shift? In reality, some ladies have their physique slightly different from the common female type.