What do we look for in a portrait? Is it an accurate resemblance or the story behind it? It’s often both, but portraits are also political artworks even when they don’t intend to be. That is because who gets featured in them serves as a social barometer. When you step inside a stately home in the UK, the full-length portraits tell you that the person you are looking up at is important.
What is absent is often any reference to a person of colour, unless they happen to be a servant in the background. It’s within this context that the portraits of Oshorenoya David Francis, presented in a solo exhibition at 1853 Studios, paint a different narrative.
The paintings are devoid of pretence; they capture intimate moments, often depicting young black men. The roughly painted backgrounds hint at these being snapshot moments in time, where the subjects aren’t posed but relaxed, going about their daily habits, whether that’s hunched over a laptop or sharing some wine.
His vision of masculinity captures the full spectrum from the stereotypical to the atypical. In ‘An Ode to the Physical Self’, a muscular man in only shorts photographs his reflection, much like we might see someone post on Instagram. Colour in the background is used sparingly to ensure our focus remains on the figure. It feels very much in keeping with today’s zeitgeist, where people feel pressure to share every moment on Instagram, and the more intimate and revealing it is, the more engagement it generates.
While another man tries to better himself by reading a chapter of ‘Atomic Habits’. In this work, he is slumped in a chair, and it looks like he hasn’t even noticed us observing him as his brain processes the book’s contents. One work shows a man being performative and attention-seeking, while the other is a moment of learning and introspection. Both are displays of masculinity but take different forms.
Two of his paintings feature people embracing dogs, showcasing both a tender side of people and an owner-protector role. Oshorenoya captures these intimate moments that happen across the country every day, but immortalised in paint, they become something more: a celebration of love for ‘man’s best friends’ and a chance to highlight humanity at its most caring and loving.
Much like we see in painters such as Lucien Freud, the aim is not to create a flattering portrait but to capture the emotions and spirit of the moment. To me, the works most closely resemble those of Alice Neel, who also endeavoured to paint the kinds of people we don’t see in galleries or stately homes but who play important parts in their communities. She asked who deserves to be painted, and in her mind, the people she chose are the ones she thought we should all see; I see something similar in Osherenoya’s work.
At a time when political and racial divisions are rising throughout Europe, it’s important to spotlight the people who often get missed, the migrants who make a country great, and to show their humanity. When we see the human side of any individual, we develop empathy for them, and Oshorenoya David Francis’ paintings open the door for that empathy.
Oshorenoya David Francis’ exhibition at 1853 Studios was co-curated by Obi Nwaegbe and Natasha Virli, and the exhibition ran from 15 to 17 May 2026.
More information on the artist may be found on his Instagram account.
