The Radical Door: Art as Self-Liberation with LAJA
“glitches that fill the hole love once created“, 2024. 24 x 24 inches unframed, mixed media on board, image courtesy the artist
Interview conducted via WhatsApp by Motheo Mamabolo.
The body as a site of meaning. The body as a place of discovery. Cut, fragmented and layered. Soft, tender and fragile—yet still a platform for tension. Will it always start and end here? And will I always feel so far and yet so close to my Self?
“Are we only echoing desire, or are we daring to speak it out loud?”
This question lingered in my mind as I sat with LAJA’s work, preparing for the Echo Chambers catalogue. One day, Tushar sent me a website filled with poetry. One poem in particular threw me into LAJA’s world of undefined space. That in-between place where romantic lovers and friends meet, where desire dances its push and pull—where want overtakes the need for control or even clarity. It reads:
Love,
When you are not around me
I want to make love to many strangers
And then call you to tell you all the details
If you get angry -
The angrier you are
The more secure I feel.
PART ONE
Motheo: This undefined space is something I see in your work. The bodies are surrounded by an unfamiliar, undefined space. Undefined identity, undefined desire. A yearning, sometimes directionless but always visceral. I’m interested in your exploration of the human figure and it’s place in time and space. The figures are formless, something mystic about how you portray the human body. The space usually undefined. Can you speak a little about this and what this might represent?
LAJA: It's a very lovely poem, really. It perfectly describes the state of mind I was in while making the pieces... It was a moment when I was very in love with a lover of mine who didn't want to be with me anymore. My only solace was to turn to the pursuit of pleasure, sex, drugs, art, trying to fill the hole she left behind. She was undescribably jealous, which in a weird way made me feel loved. It's funny how life finds ways to separate people in spite of the connection shared...
“pause through sweetness and stone“, 2024. 24 x 24 inches unframed, mixed media on board. Image courtesy the artist
M: The bodies are also fragmented. The human body feels like a place of exploration or discovery. Why this abstraction? And what does that say about identity and desire?
L: Yes, yes. This undefined space is a state of mind very similar to limbo, a sort of place of waiting. Waiting to be healed. Waiting to be happy and whole again. It's really embedded in my work. The figures I used are displaced. It's kind of a visual metaphor for a seeking individual, a wanderer, someone who is lost. Faces that show the intimacy between intense sadness, and colours that express desire and longing... The fragmented bodies are just my way of saying that I have surrendered to the pleasures of the flesh—finding my identity in little moments filled with extreme joy, desire, and unhappiness. It's very existential, and very informed by the works of Albert Camus, the Algerian philosopher. Abstraction just naturally seemed like a good way to convey my message.
M: The bodies are layered and still there is smoothness to it. In a way, the skin of the bodies exhude a sensitivity. What are you trying to convey with this choice?
LAJA: The layered bodies represent the complexities of the human soul and body. There is definitely a sensual feel to the skin and figures used. This way I try to express absolute desire
PART TWO
M: I have this quote by you “I’m attracted to post-minimalism for its radical thought and unorthodox approach towards making art. As you might have already noticed, Nigeria’s contemporary art scene isn’t filled up with ideas that scream out towards the radical door. And that’s precisely why I fell in love with the idea. Also, I was looking for an alternative and challenging approach to creating art that drifted away from my prior neo-expressionist style.”
What does this radical door represent for you?
L: The radical door was a type of leap of faith into ideas I used to think were very Western. Post-minimalism was a concept I really loved exploring back then, and it was very new territory for me. I don't have as much fire for post-minimalism as I used to. That’s because I found that you can be just as radical and tenacious while exploring the boundaries of paintings and sexuality in an environment where topics like sex and vulnerability are kind of seen as taboo.
M: The radical door.
This term is sharp, I’m obsessed. You mention Nigeria’s contemporary art scene and being departed from this world. The radical door being the separating factor. What kind of world exists beyond this door, and how does your work engage with (or resist) it?
L: To be very honest, I don't consider myself a Nigerian artist or a Black artist. First of all, I'm human before I'm even an artist. I believe most artists overlook this existential truth. I believe the world can inform your work in many ways if you do not marginalize yourself into subcategories of race and nationality. This to me is just an illusion—just as the Buddha had mentioned many times. This opens up life in ways you'd never expect. You could start telling personal truths and find out more about yourself as a human with many interests through art. My work is very political in the sense that it's anti-political. It's all about self-expression, and the intersection is based on the fact that it has, through history, been regarded as very anarchist to truly express yourself.
Installation view of Echo Chamber. Image courtesy Daniel Uwaga.
PART THREE
M: Let’s go back to influence. To evolution. To becoming LAJA. Ren Hang was the first reference that came to mind, but I imagine there are many more artists, writers, philosophers, and cultural workers who inspire your curiosity beyond the radical door. Please share with us who has been inspiring you lately?
L: I really love Ren Hang’s work and how he approaches nudity and sexuality. But I also love female artists that take on similar narratives through different mediums, such as Tracey Emin and her confessional art and paintings, which I find very intimate and sexually rich. I'm influenced by music a lot—artistes like Björk, Tricky, Kurt Cobain—and really inspired by philosophers like Marcus Aurelius, Socrates, Nietzsche, Sartre, Kierkegaard, and Albert Camus.
M: I took a deep dive into previous works before the birth of Echo Chamber. Looking back at your earlier works, I noticed that your relationship to sexual imagery has evolved - sometimes explicit and other times leaving room for imagination to build the rest of the story. How do you balance explicitness and abstraction in the depictions in your work? Which side wins?
L: I've been exploring the subject of sex and sexuality ever since I can remember—from immersive sexual desires to the pleasures of copulation while reflecting opposing mind states. Sex is a deep part of how I navigate my existence. I find that I don't think about balancing the explicit and abstract—it just comes naturally as a visual metaphor for my desire.
M: Do you see your work opening up conversations about sex and sensuality in Nigerian art, or is it still something the art world here resists? How has the response to your work reflected that tension?
L: I really do see my work opening up conversations about sex and sensuality—especially in an environment that frowns on honest expression of these topics. I think these topics are starting to find a place in Nigerian art due to the exposure enacted by Western technology on Nigerian culture.
