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Becoming Loud
2022 / This Is UsSold
A vivid portrait of self-invention in which colour, yarn, and direct gaze turn visibility into a chosen act.
Series
This Is Us
An empathetic body of work centred on individuals who are too quickly judged through dress, styling, piercings, vivid colour, and public self-presentation.
2021-2023
An earlier socially observant figurative series
Series statement
This Is Us marks an important earlier chapter in Benjamin Asante's figurative practice. The series attends to people whose appearance often prompts shallow readings: unconventional clothing, piercings, bold hairstyles, or fashion choices that become a basis for misunderstanding.
Rather than sensationalising those surface markers, the paintings stay with dignity, poise, and emotional depth. The figures are observed with patience, allowing clothing and adornment to register as forms of self-definition rather than spectacle.
The series also clarified a working process that continues into later bodies of work: references shaped by fashion and music culture, drawn compositions, measured painting, and the selective use of yarn or crochet thread within costume, braids, or structural accents before the surface is fully resolved.
Themes
- Social perception
- Self-expression
- Empathy
- Visibility
- Human presence
Process
- Reference gathering informed by street style, music culture, and lived observation
- Drawing-led composition to establish stance, balance, and relational tension
- Careful painting of figure and atmosphere before collage accents are introduced
- Yarn and crochet thread integrated into garments, braids, or key visual details
Works in the series
Selected artworks
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Side by Side
2021 / This Is UsSold
Two figures occupy the picture with distinct styling and a shared quiet assurance.
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Letter from London
2021 / This Is UsSold
Reading becomes a small architecture of distance, aspiration, and inward travel.
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Inheritance
2021 / This Is UsSold
An embrace, a slogan, and a framed image gather intimacy and lineage into one measured scene.
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Soft Rebellion
2021 / This Is UsSold
Stillness becomes resistance as styling and pose refuse narrow readings of beauty and selfhood.
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No Apologies
2021 / This Is UsSold
A skateboard, bold styling, and steady bearing frame confidence as a lived condition rather than a performance.