In a world where women are told all the things they can or cannot do, Chigozie Obi’s art creates a world where women exist in unbounded freedom. Bleeding, smoking, staring into space: we are ushered into a world where women can just be.
Her eyes are solute and unshaken. Her middle finger is gallant in its elevation. The woman in the painting is the very embodiment of defiance: legs spread wide open, a sliver of pink lace staring us in the face. Above her head is a sentence written in Igbo: ‘Meche okpa gi i bu nwanyi, Close your legs, you are a girl’, something the artist heard time and time growing up, epithets hurled at women telling them what they can and cannot do. As she ushered this painting into being, every hue mixed, every brush stroke, every pencil drawing is a vehement rebuttal to the containment of women. The muse – with her blue hair, deep olive green crop top baring the warm skin of her belly does not smile – does not close her legs, does not shrink herself. She opens like a garden, fierce and ready to bloom...
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