In the Quiet: Solitude, Vulnerability, and Hope in Modern Art

by

Jojolola Dopamu (Curator at Soto Gallery)

In a time where connectivity saturates every corner of life, solitude—when explored with nuance—emerges as both radical and deeply necessary. This is the space the artist behind Lingering Solace (2023), Healing (2022), Hope (2021), The Conscience (2018), and Untitled

occupies: a quiet confrontation with the human emotional condition. Far from offering mere aesthetics, these works compel us to look inward, pushing us into a conversation about individuality, longing, and inner reckoning.

Lingering Solace (2023): The Defiant Quiet

In Lingering Solace, the artist transforms an ordinary, intimate moment—dining alone—into an understated act of defiance. Set within the private confines of an apartment, the piece revels in contrasts: warm, glowing reds play against weighty, enveloping shadows, creating a tension as palpable as it is haunting.

What lingers here is its duality. Eating is, after all, a communal ritual. Yet this solitary feast feels deliberate. There is a quiet insistence on independence, though a faint yearning seeps through in the downward tilt of the figure’s gaze. It’s a meditation on isolation—chosen or

otherwise—and the human craving for connection, executed with painterly precision and emotional generosity. This delicate tension between solitude and its silent discomfort anchors the work and pulls the viewer into its uneasy beauty.

Healing (2022): Tender Resilience

Healing immerses us in a lush wash of purples, soft yet full of depth, as a lone figure holds a glowing orb—a small, radiant world cradled in their hands. There is vulnerability here, a tender kind of strength that reveals itself not in grand gestures but in quiet stillness. The orb becomes a

symbol for renewal, light held tightly during a moment of struggle. It’s deeply personal, yet unmistakably universal. Anyone who’s sought a semblance of calm amid life’s bruises will find something familiar in this work. If the piece leans slightly toward

harshness in its sharper edges and transitions, this only underscores the unevenness of the healing process itself—hard, yet hopeful. It’s the kind of image that stays with you, asking questions rather than offering easy answers.

Hope (2021): Color in Despair

With Hope, the artist leans into stark simplicity: a teary protagonist against a near-monochrome background of blacks and muted browns. This setting, heavy and sombre, feels deliberately empty, as though mirroring the vastness of loneliness. The figure’s expression—pained, weary—is unflinching in its honesty. But it is the tears that make this piece electric: bold, rainbow-hued cascades falling like a torrent.

Those tears, impossibly vibrant, change everything. They are not sorrow contained; they are sorrow transformed, pouring out in the hopeful language of color. This is struggle—intense and specific, echoing the ache of a closeted existence, of fear and alienation—but also resilience.

The rainbow weaves a thread of optimism into the despair, like light breaking through a storm cloud.

It’s a simple composition, but nothing feels accidental. The work pulses with emotional immediacy, laying bare the ache of rejection but daring to imagine brighter days.

Across this body of work, the artist balances subtlety with undeniable emotional depth. In their solitude, their figures resist oblivion; they breathe and yearn and remember what it is to hope.

These pieces do not shout; they whisper—soft, resolute, and unafraid of stillness. What lingers most, perhaps, is an invitation for the viewer to find themselves within these quiet, reflective worlds.