Oluwole Omofemi gave his all to his portrait of the Queen – a special commission for the cover of Tatler’s Platinum Jubilee issue. The 34-year-old Nigerian artist always immerses himself in a project, but for Her Majesty, he shut out all distraction: he slept for four weeks in a separate room from his wife, who single-handedly looked after the couple’s two children, Oluwatomiwa and Itunu, for the duration of the commission. Often, for hours in the middle of the night, he studied his source photograph – a 1950s portrait of the Queen holding a fan – just letting the project take shape: ‘Even eating, I am looking at it on my screensaver,’ he says. ‘God has helped me to do this…[It is] the most important project of my life so far.’
The most important project, maybe, but Omofemi – or ‘Femi’, as he is widely known – took his usual approach to this vivid picture: ‘When I start any project, it is not about how beautiful the painting looks but how I can capture the essence of my subject. I needed to imagine I was in front of the Queen, to connect with her. She is the longest-reigning [monarch], and when I look at her, I see someone who has conquered life. She understands what she needs to do and she knows she can do it well.’
The resulting artwork is a celebration of a strong, iconic woman, painted in oil on canvas in his signature pop-art palette. It’s not only on Tatler’s cover that the picture appears – it will also be displayed prominently in the specially curated Sotheby’s exhibition Power & Image: Royal Portraiture & Iconography, along with one of Andy Warhol’s screenprints from his 1985 Reigning Queens portfolio and the Woburn Abbey Collection’s Armada Portrait of Elizabeth I.
Omofemi was born in 1988 and spent his childhood living with his mother and two younger sisters in Ibadan, southern Nigeria. His maternal grandfather was a huge influence, instilling in him the importance of his cultural heritage and a strong code of self-discipline. Indeed, his earliest memories of art involve being ticked off for making a mess. His mother would follow him around when he was just four years old, tidying away the artistic ‘installations’ he created out of household objects – ‘I was always piling up cans and paper and things’ – and despairing as he scribbled on walls and floors. (Omofemi now has a two-year-old boy of his own with his wife, Omolade Titilayo, and laughs as he tells me that his son makes exactly the same kind of mess: ‘My wife is very understanding.’)
Even as a young child, he knew that he was born to paint. But becoming an artist was not considered a viable way of earning a living, and his parents wanted him to train as a doctor or pharmacist. Even his beloved grandfather advised him to put his manual skills to practical use by becoming an electrician. But the quiet confidence detectable in Omofemi today was already in evidence. Throughout his teenage years, he worked hard to earn money, hawking beer, working at a restaurant and in a car wash, saving to buy himself oil paints, brushes and sketchbooks.
He befriended many of the local roadside artists and began to visit the studio of Tope Fatunmbi, an established Nigerian artist who owned a gallery in Ibadan and became a mentor. The young Femi would watch what Fatunmbi was doing, then go home and create something himself. The next day, he would take it back to the gallery to be assessed. By his teenage years, he was known as the best art student in his school, so good that his teachers commissioned him to paint portraits. ‘I was very famous in school,’ he laughs. ‘Everyone would say, “Oh this guy, he’s an artist.”’
But it was a shocking exposure to the art world that turned Omofemi into a full-time professional artist: ‘The first time I went to an exhibition was in Lagos when I had left school. I saw a painting priced for a ridiculous amount of money and it triggered something in me: this could be a way to realise my dream.’ The Nigerian painter Ebenezer Akinola introduced him to Alexis Galleries in Lagos, who instantly recognised the young artist’s talent and took him on. Their faith was justified: he sold his first painting as a gallery artist when he was just 18 and things snowballed from that moment on. In 2020, he was given his first exhibition in London. Omofemi’s work now hangs in Mayfair at Khalil Akar’s gallery, Signature African Art, an outpost of one of Nigeria’s leading contemporary art galleries.
As an artist, he says, he is constantly looking for new challenges, so he didn’t hesitate when he was asked to undertake Tatler’s commission. ‘It was a wonderful opportunity for me as an artist to be able to add my name to a historic list of people who have painted the Queen, so I was very excited about it.’
The first thing he did was to go away and study the life of the Queen. He wanted to find a picture that captured not just what she looks like but more importantly what he feels about her. ‘Growing up, I heard a lot of good things about the Queen and how impactful she is – not just in the United Kingdom but to the Commonwealth and all over the world.’ The royal visit to Nigeria in 1956 had been of great significance to him; his grandfather had been present when the monarch drove past, waving to everyone, and this encounter became part of Omofemi’s childhood stories. The photograph he used as the starting point for his portrait dates from around the time of this visit. ‘She was so young and yet she had already undertaken so much,’ he says.
A striking feature of his portrait is the impasto paint he has used to highlight certain key details: ‘One of the things that makes the Queen is the crown, and I was looking for a way to capture this differently.’ The same technique is used for the star of the Order of the Garter and the necklace she wears, as well as the diamond bracelet around her wrist, a gift from the Duke of Edinburgh – all of them symbols of her role as Queen. Combined with this are elements that root the painting firmly in the oeuvre of this proudly Nigerian artist. The brocade dress from the original photograph has been given an African flower pattern and the white fur of the ermine robe in her right hand has become a bright turquoise.
But perhaps most remarkable in the context of his work is the Queen’s hair. Most of Omofemi’s portraits depict African women, for whom, he notes, their hair is a key part of their identity. His grandfather, who sported an Afro at the time, was a strong advocate of the natural hair movement of the 1960s, encouraging men and women of African descent to embrace the texture of their hair. For Omofemi, it is an artistic metaphor for freedom and power and he has deliberately depicted the Queen with a bold halo of black hair. ‘Many of the great things the Queen achieved came at a very young age, so I have painted her with black hair. I also wanted to introduce my own style into this painting and, for me, hair represents the power of the woman.’
What did Omofemi find most difficult about this commission? His answer comes immediately: ‘Studying the Queen’s skin tone. I knew this would represent a huge challenge for me because I always paint black women, and I had to conquer my fear.’
But as he knows only too well, with every new challenge comes reward, and he is confident that with this painting he has achieved what he set out to do: ‘This portrait is one of my best works because of the emotion that was put into it.’
True, but Omofemi has done more than that. He has given expression to the great qualities for which our Queen is so widely admired and which every portrait tries to capture: the calm confidence with which she has dedicated herself to the role into which she was born. ‘This person has conquered life.’
