Samuel Olayombo: Lotus Bloom Ranchers

“I cross the boundaries of traditional masculinity, macho culture, societal gender assertions and associations,” says Samuel Olayombo, who works with oils, acrylics, charcoal and pastels to create vibrant and large-scale canvases of predominately male but non-gender normative portraits. Using a palette knife to convey intricate 3D skin textures, he pays homage to classic artists from Van Gogh and Arja Valimaki to El Dragg Okwoju and Barkley Hendricks; and he prefers to use traditionally ‘female’ colours, like rose and pastel pinks, to depict seemingly brute masculine subjects: “For me, regardless of gender, we are all equal and this is the major reason why I employ the colour pink in my paintings. I want to correct the notion that pink is feminine … I envision my portraits as an effort to change representations of masculinity, and shift ideas on what it means to be a man.”

To 11 November.