Clover I – II

A woman’s face is seen through a cloverleaf-shaped opening. The white foreground emphazises the act of looking as it creates an opening from which the woman comes into view. With a strained expression on her face, the intimate act of observing another person is disrupted by the woman’s gaze, shifting the power relationship. Individual details are accentuated using the blind embossing technique, which highlights sections of the work by printing without ink.

Clover I and II depict the actress Carol Speed portraying the title character in the 1974 blaxploitation horror movie Abby. The plot of the film is so closely based on that of The Exorcist that it was withdrawn from theatres shortly after its release due to accusations of plagiarism; its main unique feature being its heavy reliance on racist and sexualized stereotypes in the portrayal of its protagonist.

Orupabo utilises the contradictory potential of her imagery by detaching it from its original context: formerly the object of the viewer’s voyeuristic gaze, the portrayed figure now stares back out of the image. Isolated from the film plot, it becomes possible to re-interpret her frothing facial expression perhaps as anger, despair or disgust in the face of the exploitative gaze to which she is subjected.