PRINCE RESTING CHAIR is a raw, emotional diptych that memorializes the tragic return and death of his childhood best friend—the son of former Liberian president, Samuel Doe. The left panel centers on an outstretched arm, painted with layered textures and fractured colors, heavy and expressive. This arm is both a literal remembrance of his friend and a self-portrait of TAKI’s own hand in the act of painting—grief and creativity merged into one gesture. His friend, who fled Liberia before the war and returned as an adult, was found hanged soon after his arrival. Officials called it suicide, but for TAKI, the truth lies in the unresolved violence that still lingered, the ghosts of revenge that waited long after the battlefield quieted.
The right panel shows an upside-down chair, its legs jutting out like broken limbs, violently angled against a chaotic, abstract backdrop. This fallen chair symbolizes more than a death—it reflects the collapse of power, the legacy of betrayal, and the disorientation of an Africa where the foundation remains inverted, unstable, and often unjust. For TAKI, the chair is a metaphor for the continent’s fractured vision: a structure turned against itself, wounding both the innocent and the guilty. PRINCE RESTING CHAIR becomes a deeply personal eulogy and a wider commentary on the cost of legacy, where the past refuses to let go and where returning home can still mean execution by memory.
PRINCE RESTING CHAIR
TAKI GOLD
2022
Multimedia: acrylic and spray paint on canvas
24 x 24 x 2.5 in (diptych)
Price on Request
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