In Yoruba cosmology, ori inu is the inner self — the personal spirit that accompanies you from before birth and acts as your guide, your counsel, your deepest knowing. It is not the same as instinct, not exactly. It is older than instinct. It is the self you were before circumstance shaped you.
I think about ori inu often when I am in the middle of making. There is a moment in every piece where the plan gives way to something else. The sketch does not match the canvas. The colour I chose refuses the surface. And then something shifts — a decision made below the level of reasoning — and the work begins to breathe.
Ori inu does not shout. It does not need to. It has been with you longer than your name.
Western art education has a language for this: intuition, flow state, the unconscious. But I find those words clinical against the warmth of what they are trying to describe. Ori inu feels more accurate. It is not a mechanism. It is a companion.
I painted a series last year where I stopped planning entirely. No sketches. No colour swatches. I sat with the canvas and waited until something arrived. It was uncomfortable in a way that felt important — the discomfort of trusting rather than controlling.
What came out of that series was some of the most honest work I have made. Pieces that I could not fully explain but could fully feel. Pieces that looked like the inside of something rather than the outside.
I am still learning to listen. To slow down enough to hear what ori inu is saying before my rational mind crowds it out. That practice — that discipline of listening — is the real studio work. The painting is just what happens when I get it right.
