ICHEOKU says whose portraits are they anyway that were passed off as the representation of former President Barack Hussein Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama, which the National Portraits Gallery unveiled to the world today. ICHEOKU is not impressed and so are millions of world wide citizens including Americans, who did not see the two portraits as the accurate and true rendering of both public figures.
The Barack Obama painting depicts an older man than the man who just left the White House only last November 2016. Although the image could safely be used to track him down should he go missing; but the damage done to Michelle Obama is such that she is practically unrecognizable and cannot be identified with the image. Put in another way, the image rendered on the canvass or whatever the material it is, was not the former First Lady's.
No explanation is sufficient to cushion or sugarcoat the damage, regardless of the spin. It was a poor rendition and it turned out uglier than the former First Lady is ugly. Just take a god look at the portrait and you will see a Michelle Obama's body but without her face; somewhat an imposed stranger's face on her body.
Anyway, who knows what the intention of the First Couple are in deciding to use this two portraits as what they want to be remembered by for their time in the White House. But whatever their intention and believing that they were consulted during the painting and supervised them while they progressed, and subsequently approved the final outcome before it was presented to the public, the country deserved better. ICHEOKU regrets that the artists who worked on the paintings did a very bad job and will not hire them to paint even a worst enemy. They were mediocre at best and not good at what they do and did.
New York-based artist Kehinde Wiley and Baltimore based artist Amy Sherald who painted Barack Obama and Michelle Obama respectively for the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, will certainly not get more job referrals by reason of this their works. Very poorly rendered. ICHEOKU is not satisfied as a more experienced artist could have been retained and would have done a better job. SAD.
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Christy 'Apena' Essien-Igbokwe , the wife of Jegede Shokoya of the New Masquerade and Nigeria's lady of songs is dead; she was 51years old. Although her family claimed that "brief Illness" killed her like so many Nigerians; Icheoku retorts that it was most likely AKwa Ibom voodoo and remote control that was used to arrest her. It is on record that she had fallen out with the governor of her native Akwa Ibiom State and have been having a relentless war for political turf with the governor? So who knows whether she was sacrificed to Ekpe cult or even Alusi-Okija as an offal; afterall African science is still very much alive and portent. May her soul rest in peace.
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