Somebody Else’s Muse by Rolake Osabia

The renewed lens was manifested from another artist’s perspective. Last November, my friend, the talented figurative painter Cece Philips, asked if she could take some reference images of me to use in her work. In her message, she emphasised that she knows I hate being photographed (which is true), but I was happy to oblige, honoured that I might feature as a minor figure in one of her forthcoming works. Cece’s large-scale paintings often include Black women and femmes in power suits as central figures with a colour palette of vibrant yellows, reds, and more recently, gorgeous blues, in which she cites Alphonse Osbert as an influence.