TEXT: VIKY FLOROU | PHOTOS: TOYIN IBIDAPO
With her house’s bedroom and the natural beams of light shining through the window being the only scenery, Toyin Ibidapo, of Nigerian descent, captures , since 1999, the crude, fragile side of puberty in her photo scrapbook, CULT OF BOYS’. Young boys parade in the house of Toyin, who ferrets out to bring to light the honesty and truth of their faces.
Having a bee in her bonnet about androgynous features, she wishes to re-define male beauty with a bunch of effeminate, skinny, pale and tousled boys with long hair, which are actually her reference point. A hint of voyeurism and sexuality, which outshines the purity and innocence of this age, is hidden in the eyes of the protagonists, creating a gate to explore the youthful, enigmatic soul.
The outcome is a series of realistic, unpretentious, juvenile portraits, coloured with a touch of the aesthetic of the 70’s.
Τoyin Ibidapo’s book, Cult of Boys, is published by teNeues (http://www.teneues.com/shop-uk/index.php)
