- Medium
- Mixed media on canvas
- Size
- Enquire
- Year
- 2026
- Edition
- Original · 1 of 1
Details
The head is turned to strict profile and kept there, bald and white-bearded, against a ground of ochre and sage worked chalky and quiet. Ochre and sage are close in value, so the silhouette does most of the drawing and the interior of the face does very little. The beard takes more of the frame than the face does. In the catalogue foreword Azekwoh writes that the canon “kept its kings and its saints and its old men in profile. I am keeping mine.” Father Time is the oldest man available, and here he gets the pose that sentence names. The profile turns the look along the canvas instead of out of it, so there is nothing on offer to meet. An allegory that has always run on shorthand is answered with the barest shorthand there is, an outline, which makes ageing a matter of profile rather than of face.
