Published by The Guardian Nigeria, this review by Gregory Austin Nwakunor explores Lateefat Tobun's Mending the Gaps as a meditation on migration, identity and belonging.
The article examines the painting's use of minimal composition, negative space and recurring motifs of thread, sewing and repair to consider the ongoing process of self-construction. Rather than presenting identity as fixed or complete, the work proposes belonging as an unfinished and continuous act of making, maintaining and mending.
Nwakunor highlights Tobun's restrained visual language and argues that the work derives its emotional impact not from spectacle or narrative density, but from concentration, ambiguity and carefully chosen symbolism. The review positions Mending the Gaps within broader conversations around displacement and diasporic experience while recognising the artist's distinctive approach to these themes.
"The result is a work less interested in the drama of displacement than in the quieter labour that follows it: the slow work of assembling a self from inherited patterns, remembered places, and unfinished seams." — Gregory Austin Nwakunor, The Guardian Nigeria
