We are delighted to present a selection of original artworks by Dr Rolake Osabia, which will be available to view throughout the day of the symposium in room G44, Edith Morley Building.
Dr Rolake Osabia is an interdisciplinary researcher and artist with a PhD in English Literature from University College London. Her artwork was selected for a Tate Collective billboard exhibition in London and has been commissioned by Lucy Writers for an article by author Irenosen Okojie. During her PhD, she combined her painting practice with literary analysis and archival research methodologies to produce the first illustrated thesis in UCL’s English Department. This artistic research method engages with the idea that writers leave spaces for their readers to enter, which researchers and writers like Louise M. Rosenblatt and Toni Morrison state is necessary for the act of reading to take place. The connection between reader and writer is solidified through language, but, as an artist, she goes further to create this sense of intimacy with the viewer of the artwork. Rolake’s postdoctoral research outputs extend her practice of merging art, literature and literary criticism. In 2025, she was awarded the NACBS Diversity and Inclusion Fellowship. With the award, she will curate two community-oriented shows, a group exhibition, Supplying the Colour and a solo show, Isolation and Kinship.
For the inaugural Bernardine Evaristo Symposium, Rolake presents a selection of paintings from the fourth chapter of her PhD thesis, which critically examined Evaristo’s texts Lara (1997/2009) and Girl, Woman, Other (2019). Rolake’s visual practice – which explores different mediums and painting styles – is a form of archive building, commemoration and figure-placing. Some of the artworks are based on lived experiences, people and sites in Black British and feminist history, while others depict fictional sites and characters.