Very Blue Two 2017

Curator: Here we have Monica Ikegwu's striking "Very Blue Two" created in 2017 using acrylic paint. What are your immediate impressions? Editor: It’s kind of melancholic, no? That cool blue palette, almost suffocating in its uniformity, coupled with those searching eyes. I wonder if it’s sadness, or perhaps quiet defiance radiating from the subject. Curator: The dominance of blue is certainly significant. Notice how Ikegwu uses varying shades and patterns – the decorative background almost flattens the pictorial space, pushing the figures forward and emphasizing their presence. There’s a tension created between the patterned surface and the three-dimensionality of the figures, drawing our eye to the formal elements at play here. Editor: Totally, the background feels like this ornate cage, or maybe a screen, with the two women placed deliberately in the front of it. I mean, their expressions are worlds apart too. One is turned away, seemingly detached, but the other is locked into your gaze and vulnerable and resilient all at once. It’s such an odd diptych. Curator: It is. Considering the artist’s engagement with neo-pop aesthetics, we might see the heart emblazoned on one figure's shirt, like a contemporary emblem, and explore questions surrounding commodification, identity, and representation of self. Editor: Interesting. It almost reads like a brand; a commentary on how we wear our hearts so plainly these days, exposed, branded, for better or worse. But those direct eyes from the other...are something beyond such surface-level interpretation, as well. Maybe Ikegwu's offering a deeper inquiry to viewers, one asking who are we *behind* those symbols. Curator: Indeed. The painting's strength is found in the push and pull it creates. The viewer's active participation in deconstructing Ikegwu’s carefully constructed composition is critical for meaning-making. Editor: I agree; you keep searching for answers and yet I suspect it wants to challenge and subvert anything too conclusive. In any case, it really makes one stop and stare. Curator: Very well put, yes, indeed a powerful painting on selfhood worth revisiting.