Published by Independent Nigeria, this critique by Yemi Adebisi considers Lateefat Tobun's The Faces We Outgrow as an exploration of identity's instability and persistence.
The article focuses on the painting's overlapping faces and compressed pictorial space, interpreting the work as a meditation on the coexistence of multiple selves rather than the representation of separate individuals. Through distortion, asymmetry and layered forms, the work proposes identity as something accumulated rather than replaced.
Adebisi situates the painting within broader conversations around migration and diasporic experience, arguing that belonging can exist simultaneously across places, cultures and histories rather than sequentially. Home becomes less a destination than a collection of emotional and cultural imprints carried forward over time.
The critique notes the painting's relationship to contemporary figurative abstraction while emphasising the restraint of its visual language. Rather than relying on novelty or excessive symbolism, the work derives its impact from precision, emotional clarity and carefully considered distortion.
Ultimately, the article argues that The Faces We Outgrow understands transformation not as rupture but as accumulation. Memories, former identities and inherited histories remain visible beneath newer versions of the self, creating a broader reflection on change, belonging and personal evolution.
