Amazon’s rising voice for womanhood
If you describe Tejumola Animashaun’s artworks as a bridge between traditional and modern, you are right. Also, you are certainly on the spot if you classify her body of works
If you describe Tejumola Animashaun’s artworks as a bridge between traditional and modern, you are right. Also, you are certainly on the spot if you classify her body of works as a strong voice for womanhood, which reflects a diverse experience that encompasses strength and softness. As a practising visual artist, aside other interests, she explores identity, vulnerability, and the complex layers of womanhood through work that functions as both personal testament and collective mirror.
The graduate of Industrial Chemistry from Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba Akoko, Ondo State (2011-2015), is a multidisciplinary visual artist working across both traditional and digital media. Drawing from personal experience and the social landscapes around her, Animashaun’s artistic voice emerges when language proves insufficient. Her work captures the quiet narratives that often remain unspoken yet deeply felt. Through her evolving practice, she examines how identity shifts and morphs over time, bending under pressure, breaking through trauma, and rebuilding through intentional acts of self-preservation and growth.
Central to her collection is her interest in womanhood as a multifold experience that encompasses strength and softness, voice and silence, loss and recovery. She approaches these themes not as fixed states but as fluid conditions, constantly in dialogue with one another. Her art becomes a space where vulnerability is not weakness but radical honesty, and where resilience is understood not as imperviousness, but as the capacity to remain open despite difficulty.
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Since going professional in 2023, Animashaun has exhibited both locally and internationally. Her work has been featured at several galleries including Mad House by Tikera, The Polygon Space, 234 Art Fair and exhibitions across the United Kingdom, Brazil and Dubai. Her practice continues to evolve as she expands her reach while maintaining the intimate, reflective quality at the core of her work creating art that speaks to shared human experiences while remaining rooted in her specific journey as a woman and artist.
In two of her recent works currently showing at a group digital art exhibition at the Kutubna Cultural Centre, Dubai, she uses digital tools to interrogate the relationship between technology and human experience. The identical works, which are part of her Bloom series, Day Bloom, Oraya (2025) and Night Bloom, Pitaya (2025) stand out among the collection on display. Thematically, she explores identity, vulnerability, and the complex layers of womanhood through works that function as both personal testament and a collective mirror.
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In Day Bloom, Animashaun captures an image of a female figure with a simple dress code that exudes confidence and courage. They also serve as metaphors for energy and expression. The white dress depicts purity of mind amidst soft colours in the background that show diversity and complexity of human nature. She uses colours with calming and cool tones to balance the composition colours such as Royal blue, Muted teal, Olive green, Mustard yellow, Warm beige, Soft gold tones, Rust orange, Dark brown and faded cream.With such warm colours on the background like a colourful window blind, the figure is thrown up as the focal point of the painting, thus achieving a high contrast. The character has deep brown skin tones,warm chocolate brown, soft highlights in tan and caramel,black hair with dark brown undertones. The expression on her face seems unperturbed as she looks straight and focused. The layered textures over the face slightly blur the features, which can suggest how identity is often covered by society’s expectations, judgment, or history. It can also hint at how people are seen before they are fully understood. The colourful mango-like object on her head also enhances the composition with a light and vibrant colour scheme which is the striking part of the painting. It feels symbolic rather than realistic. It suggests balance, cultural identity, nourishment, or the weight of expectations. Because it is a fruit associated with warmth and growth, it represent value, richness, or something precious that is being carried carefully.
Except for colour scheme and the stylised form, Night Bloom shares other things in common as a series. While the female figure in Day Bloom has a moderate neck length, Night Bloom figure has a stylised neck and pointed nose common to non-Africans. The artist employs matured colours on the background to reinforce her message, thus showing relative contrast with Day Bloom, despite being part of the same series. Aesthetically, she uses a mature palette with its sophisticated muted and deep tones to convey elegance, stability and confidence. The patches of forest green in the background provide a sense of authority and timelessness.
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Night Bloom, Pitaya (2025) is a part of her on-going archetype she is creating. Each Bloom represents a recognisable signature, presence, energy and expression. Pitaya embodies a softer kind of intensity - more relaxed, sweet, and steady. The fruit symbol here is dragon fruit, representing a calm vibrancy and ease.
Overall, the series examines identity shifts in individuals, and how it morphs over time during different circumstances like pressure and trauma. Also, the works speak to the rebuilding process of self-preservation and growth, as they are full of colours, charisma and expressive energy. The symbol for oraya is a mango: bright, bold and unmistakably alive.
Philosophically, the backgrounds of the two artworks show interplay of colours capturing the difference in time and season each work is set. It also highlights how human beings, like flowers, bloom when conditions are right and how circumstances affect such trajectory in life. What matters at one point in life may later no longer matter as reflected in the colour tones. However what are central to the works are features that depict healthy, energetic and attractive appearance particularly the facial expression.
