Home Alone 2018

Monica Ikegwu’s painting, “Home Alone,” captures a moment of quiet contemplation with oil on canvas. The colours are muted, a blend of ochre, soft yellows and cool blues, creating a soothing harmony that feels both intimate and expansive. Look at the light, the way it dapples the patterned wall behind the figure. There's a push and pull there, a little back and forth, between the decorative flatness of the wallpaper and the three-dimensional form suggested by the shadow. It’s a simple effect but it really makes you think about the surface of the painting as a kind of threshold. That light also reminds me of the shadows in Vilhelm Hammershøi’s interiors, and that slightly melancholy mood, where the everyday feels both familiar and remote. Paintings like this remind us that art is an ongoing conversation, one where artists borrow, steal, and transform ideas across time, always searching for new ways to capture the world as they see it.