Boston Globe feature: Meet bridal stylist and BU artist Linda Obobaifo
Linda Obobaifo, a 2024 MFA graduate student, poses for a portrait in her Boston University studio, where she creates sculptural and collaged paintings that “explore the roles of women and domesticity through identity and collective histories.”ERIN CLARK/GLOBE STAFF
Something old, something new: Meet bridal stylist and BU artist Linda Obobaifo
The MFA candidate plays with formal wear, and form itself
This article was originally published in The Boston Globe on May 6, 2024. By Cate McQuaid
Linda Obobaifo had what she called “a light bulb moment” last spring. The Master of Fine Arts candidate at Boston University and full-time bridal stylist was making paintings layered with lace and panels of Plexiglas. The lace reminded her of wedding gowns and domestic interiors such as her great-grandmother’s sofa. Then the light went on: She broke out of painting’s traditional rectangle. Her paintings began to billow off the walls. Now, there’s no stretcher bar at all.
“It’s been so much fun to allow things to go in whichever direction,” she said. “I’m not placing as much pressure on myself to have it look a certain way.” Obobaifo is a young artist to keep an eye on. We visited her in her BU studio.
Where to find her: www.instagram.com/lindaobobaifo
Age: 23
Originally from: Naperville, Ill.
Lives in: Brighton. She’s moving to Manhattan at the end of May.
Stylist and artist: “There are expectations of women — with beauty, but also, ‘Oh, are you going to get married? Are you going to have kids?’ The weight and the gravity of what women carry are things I actively think about in my practice.”
Studio: Obobaifo’s big, sculptural paintings fill the walls — the older ones rectangular, the newer ones not. Fabric samples hang in one corner. Beads, wires, jute twine, needles, and more cover a worktable. A palette with dollops of acrylic and oil paint sits on a high stool.
Favorite material: The artist learned dressmaking from her mother. “The first dress I made was a lace dress. Lace both reveals and hides the body. Formally, I’m interested in the transparency and layering and how far I can go with it. And the shadows that it casts are absolutely gorgeous.”
A detail of Linda Obobaifo’s “Browned Histories of Women Tied into Breeding America’s Lost Child — Dressed in Beads and Jute Twine.” Acrylic, oil, lace, chiffon, microsuede, jute twine, beads, and chicken wire on canvas. ERIN CLARK/GLOBE STAFF
Linda Obobaifo, “A Pure Woman’s Touch of Temperament — Dragged Through Milk and Rope.” Acrylic gesso, acrylic, oil, jute twine, raw canvas, lace, crystal organza, chiffon, wire, and beads on chicken wire. LINDA OBOBAIFO
How she started: “With representational painting. Then I wanted to push myself to see what abstract painting and sculpting could look like. It wasn’t until last semester that I really broke the stretcher bar and decided to do a free form with chicken wire, using other materials like natural fibers, synthetics, China silk, organza, and lace.”
How she works: Every piece begins on the floor. “There’s an underwire body that I create, and I start shaping it and molding it, and then it slowly goes on the wall. That’s when I start hand sewing. Everything is hand sewed, hand knotted, hand beaded. I have a sewing machine, but I don’t use it. I find it easier to mold things when you’re free-forming it. There’s something to be said about the labor and the time that it takes me to do it.”
Advice for artists: “Your work is a snapshot in time, and it’s necessary for the future work. If you’re not absolutely loving what you’re making, or you feel like, ‘I just wish it looked like XYZ,’ you have to trust in your own individual process and journey.”
Your work is a snapshot in time, and it’s necessary for the future work. If you’re not absolutely loving what you’re making, or you feel like, ‘I just wish it looked like XYZ,’ you have to trust in your own individual process and journey.
GRADUATE PAINTING
The Master of Fine Arts (MFA) program in Painting at Boston University promotes the discipline in its varied manifestations as a fundamental form of artistic expression. At its core, the program is studio-driven, with rigorous expectations about each student’s commitment to their own artistic practice.
As an art form, painting is more than an activity; it is a long-term, critical engagement with materials and methodologies, ideas, feelings and sensibilities, and histories and contexts. Graduate students work independently to sharpen their individual artistic vision and skills, while learning collectively through critical dialogue.