Gone Are Those Days

 Kushy D

The phrase” Gone Are Those Days” typically implies that a specific time period has passed and can no longer be seen. Only one of Ifeyinwa Joy Chiamonwu’s lively portraits bears the title “Gone Are Those Days” and it is part of the eight paintings in the Mattatuck Museum’s newest exhibit.

The image is similarly presented and Charcoal pencils are on Strathmore paper. The composition itself, with the central figures magnified, gives the work a regal element, and the clothing (“wrapping”) is so nicely detailed and breathtaking that one could lose oneself in the portrait. The portrait was done by Ifeyinwa Joy Chiamonwu (b.1995 in Maiduguri, Nigeria from Anambra state, Nigeria) whose works celebrate and preserve themes of tradition, culture and family. She discovered her talent for drawing and art at a young age and despite having no artistic training Chiamonwu’s meticulously detailed use of charcoal, sepia, acrylic paints and coffee stains on paper and canvas pushes the bounds for her mediums.

She started the portrait titled:” Gone Are Those Days” in October 2017 and the portrait was the first of her series Old Testament. The Old Testament is a series of works created in a bid to move its viewers to see with their eyes, the closed chapters, lost pages and the buried shells of what was; and to spring into being, even in the midst of these mists, the surge of nostalgia.