Four Friends | Signed Limited Edition African Art Print

A signed limited edition print of Four Friends, an oil on canvas by the Lagos artist Chinemelu Ofoma. Four figures on a gold ground, unframed at 30 x 42cm. Four dark figures stand shoulder to shoulder, close enough that the arms of the outer two fall across the backs of the ones beside them. One wears a wide brimmed hat. They are painted almost as silhouettes, in thick black and brown strokes worked over a field of ochre and gold, with small birds scattered through the upper half of the picture. No faces are given, so what the painting carries is the posture of four people standing together, which is the whole of the title. The ground is where the oil paint is doing the most work. It is laid on in broad horizontal drags so the gold shifts between warm and pale across the canvas, and flecks of red and orange come through from underneath. Against that, the figures read as solid shapes cut out of the light. This is one of a limited edition of 100 prints on paper, each signed by the artist. It is supplied unframed at 30 x 42cm, which is standard A3, so it takes an off the shelf frame without a trip to a framer. It wants a wall with some room around it, since the four figures read as a group and crowding them with other pictures works against the subject. If you are after something quieter for a small wall, the same artist's My Baby print is two figures instead of four, and Nwannem is the larger A2 sheet. Care: keep it out of direct sunlight, which fades print pigment over time, and frame it behind glass rather than leaving the sheet open to the air. Handle it by the edges until it is framed.