A rare expression used by adult males of my childhood in Lagos of the early 1960s. Rare because it was only used to describe a stunningly beautiful female with an extremely dark complexion. Omoge Adumaadan was never used to flatter nor to woo a woman. The men honeslty expressed it among themselves with candour and approval.

Coincidentally at this stage of my life I was involved in an aesthetic romanticism with the black pigment. I remember one of my earliest successful pieces in black and white “the palmwine drinkard”. This was produced when I was 13. Literally Adumaadan means ‘black and beautiful’ in the Yoruba language. So Adumaadan to me is more about the stunning attractiveness of the black pigment when contrasted against a white background.