isura: Treasure of Unity

Year:                 2024

Materials:        Adire and Coffee-dyed textile on canvas

Dimension:     120 x 180 cm (48 x 72 in)

Status:             Available

Unique Original / One of a kind

Includes a signed Certificate of Authenticity

About the ișura: Treasure of Unity

I made Treasure of Unity by bringing separate strips and fragments of textile together across the canvas.

At first, they remained very clearly individual.

Different patterns. Different colours. Different edges.

I didn't want those differences to disappear.

Instead, I became interested in what happened when one fragment touched another, when one layer supported another, and when separate pieces began to create a surface that none of them could have produced alone.

 

That made me think about unity differently.

I had been considering ideas of solidarity, including Pan-African thought and wider questions about how communities form across difference. But the painting kept bringing me back to a simpler physical problem.

How do separate things belong together without becoming the same thing?

 

That question became more interesting to me than creating an image of perfect harmony.

Some edges remain visible. Some patterns compete for attention. Some relationships feel more comfortable than others.

 

Perhaps unity doesn't require the disappearance of those tensions.

The strength of the surface comes from connection, but its character comes from difference.

 

So Treasure of Unity leaves me thinking that being together and being identical are not the same thing.

Maybe the challenge is not to remove difference. Maybe it is learning how difference can remain present without preventing connection.

Material / Process

Coffee is used here as a staining material rather than simply as an image or reference. I work the coffee-dyed textile together with Adire through cutting, layering and bonding onto canvas. The process allows colour, stain, pattern and surface to build the work physically, while tea and coffee enter the work in different ways: one through remembered ritual, the other also as material.

Acquisition

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Flexible Payment

Payment plans available for purchases over £2,000. Contact us to discuss options.

Pickup available

Print Edition

Limited-edition canvas print, unstretched, in a series of 20 copies.

Dimensions: 20(W) x 20(H) inches

Canvas

Price: £195

Unstretched canvas, shipped. securely in a tube.

Custom print sizes are available as well

The total edition consists of 20 printed pieces.