The King (1994).
25w x 38h (in); or 63.5w x 96.5h (cm)

This signed, limited-edition print is a commanding meditation on responsibility, inheritance, and the act of memory. The face that dominates the painting is that of the Ìyọ́bà Idia, who was once Queen Mother of the Empire of Benin. Her son, the Oba Esigie, commissioned the mask; as ruler of his empire, we believe that he wore the mask to honor his mother’s strength as the foundation of his kingship, passing her face in front of his as the moon passes over the sun.

Behind her/him, Kente patterns and a view of the cosmos dissolve into each other. Urquhart studied quantum mechanics for this painting to borrow the aesthetics of not-knowing: as physics dictates that light can simultaneously be both particle and wave, the mask asks us to consider how we are both individuals and the culmination of our ancestries. Moreover, as physics tells us that we can’t know the state of the world until measurement changes it, the painting refuses to conceal the fragmented nature of its diasporic memory. Although the understanding of the world this mask represented may not be available to those of us that were stolen from the continent, we are free to decide what it means to us now.

Meticulously produced and hand-signed, this work speaks to collectors attuned to cultural depth and conceptual rigor. It stands as both a visual statement and a philosophical inquiry—where identity is not recovered, but continuously reimagined through the act of looking.