Eneyi Oruwari’s gallery holds a quiet little family of paintings — Mirror I, Mirror II, Mirror III, Mirror IV, Mirror V — five pieces that don’t shout for attention the way a single large canvas might, but reward anyone willing to look at them side by side.
A mirror is never just glass. It’s the moment before you decide who you’re going to be that day. It’s the question “do I look like the person I think I am?” For an artist whose entire practice is rooted in identity, belonging, and memory, painting the same subject five times isn’t repetition — it’s interrogation. Each Mirror piece asks the same question from a slightly different angle, the way you might turn your head in front of an actual mirror trying to catch a version of yourself you don’t usually see.
There’s something distinctly diasporic about this approach too. For anyone who has moved between cultures — between a childhood shaped by one set of traditions and an adult life built somewhere else entirely — identity rarely holds still long enough for a single portrait. It shifts depending on the room you’re in, the language being spoken, the year. Five mirrors might still not be enough.
Eneyi’s work consistently returns to this place where personal experience meets something larger — the social and historical narratives that shape how we see ourselves before we’ve even had a say in it. The Mirror series doesn’t resolve that tension. It just keeps looking.
All five pieces are part of the permanent gallery collection and available as original works. You can view them under Pastel and Acrylic in the gallery, or get in touch directly via the contact page to ask about a specific piece
