Ofunne Azinge is a Nigerian–British artist (b. 1998, Nigeria) whose practice merges painting, photography, and image transfer to explore cultural identity and the politics of representation. Moving between more than eleven homes between Nigeria and the UK, she used photography to process a fragmented upbringing marked by shifting cultural contexts, grief, and belonging. Returning to painting, she developed a personalised image transfer technique that fuses both media, layering personal archives, community photographs, and contributions from her sitters into textured compositions that merge the personal with the collective.
At the heart of Azinge’s work is her fascination with women. What began as a tribute to those who raised her has evolved into a broader documentation of Black women across London (and globally). Each sitter chooses how they wish to be seen, often contributing their own photographs, transforming each portrait into an act of collaboration and empowerment. Drawing on the visual language of photography, Azinge’s large-scale works depict women in poses traditionally reserved for masculine authority, subverting power dynamics and allowing her sitters to take up space on their own terms.
Azinge conceives of her practice as documentation - an ongoing archive of cultures and communities often overlooked in painting. For her, “home” is not a fixed place but a connection: “anywhere there is a Black woman, that’s where I want to be.” Colour, too, carries political weight in Azinge’s practice. Her refusal to use white paint when depicting bodies (instead layering tones of black, blue, and purple), rejects its symbolic associations in traditional painting, ensuring her Black subjects are rendered with full depth, dignity, and presence. Through this reimagining of portraiture - its symbols, subjects, and poses - Azinge builds a visual community of women rooted in strength, admiration, and empowerment.
-
Ijeoma
