Author: Rolake Osabia

Rolake Osabia is an artist, writer and PhD researcher in the English Language and Literature department at UCL. Her research explores the themes of isolation and kinship in contemporary Black British women’s literature, drawing on works by Yrsa Daley-Ward, Bernardine Evaristo, Winsome Pinnock, and Zadie Smith. Her thesis examines how these writers construct representations of loneliness, as well as Black communities, friendships and intimacies in their respective texts. Additionally, Rolake uses her paintings and illustrations as a research method to accompany literary and theoretical analysis. In 2020, her artwork ‘Pattern Up’ was selected by Tate Collective to feature on a billboard in Camden. You can follow Rolake on Instagram @rolakeosabia and Twitter @rolsisrols

Somebody Else’s Muse by Rolake Osabia

  Rolake Osabia

In this beautifully evocative essay, Rolake Osabia reflects on her own practice as an artist and painter of portraiture, and describes what it felt like to relinquish control, have her own portrait painted, and become somebody else’s muse.

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