Recession

Recession captures the silent collapse beneath the surface of society and self. In this 16 x 20 inch oil painting, John C. Ndupu confronts the emotional undercurrents of economic downturn — not through literal imagery, but through texture, color, and symbolic dissonance. This is not a narrative scene, but a spiritual autopsy of instability, rendered in the charged visual vocabulary of Aggressive Ulism.

The canvas is a battlefield of form and void. Angular strokes cut across fields of color, where crimson urgency meets the shadow of deep indigo and worn ochre. Patterns emerge, repeat, and break — as if systems are trying to hold, but can’t. The visual rhythm, both deliberate and chaotic, reflects not just a market collapse, but the internal unraveling it leaves behind.

Infused with Nsibidi glyphs and Uli-like spatial lyricism, Recession is a mirror to societal erosion, yet also a resilient act of truth-telling — one that dares to find structure amid disarray.