There’s something about Marcellina Akpojotor’s work that feels both tender and stubborn. Her portraits don’t ask to be admired — they insist on being understood. Each figure, built from layers of Ankara fabric, sits somewhere between memory and mosaic, telling stories that feel personal but also eerily familiar.

Take a look at the piece below, a woman leans into a couch, her patterned dress bleeding into the furniture like she’s becoming part of her own home; or maybe, like the home is swallowing her whole.

In another, a little girl examines a flower with the seriousness of someone discovering wonder for the first time. These aren’t just domestic scenes; they’re reflections on lineage, identity, and how women pass on both strength and softness across generations.

Marcellina’s choice of materia, tiny, hand-cut pieces of Ankara is more than mere aesthetic. It’s defiance disguised as decoration. Fabric that’s often treated as fashion becomes her medium for memory. This unusual texture gives the work a living pulse; messy, vibrant, and deliberate. And then there’s the studio: piles of fabric spilling onto the floor, a chaos that mirrors the emotional labour of piecing together histories that were never neatly told.

Her portraits, are currently showing in exhibitions like From Lagos to Seoul at Voda Gallery, South Korea.

If you think about  conversations between past and present, between the people we were raised to be and the ones we’re still becoming, Marcellina’s work comes easily to mind.

It’s storytelling in slow motion quietly revolutionizing narratives.

Check out more of  Marcellina’s works here