Amewa Allegories meets us eye-to-eye.

 

​Leon Willis paints faces that don’t simply stare back—they take up their rightful space, beckoning us to do the same. Against bold backdrops of electric emeralds and vibrant yellows, beautiful umber skintones carry traces of what has been put on, rubbed off, and lived through. A pop of pink on the lips, a flash of red along the neck, rings of citron and cobalt around the lids— each gesture feels both intimate and insurgent, like swiping on your favorite shade of lipstick before walking into a room that was never meant for you—and refusing to whisper once you’re inside.​

 

What thrills me most about Leon’s body of work is its insistence on fullness. Each portraits occupies the canvas the way we hope to occupy our own lives: unapologetically, expansively, with our heads up and shoulders back. Texture reads like testimony—oil dragged, lifted, then worked again until the surface remembers the hand that pressed it. When Leon wipes paint away, he reveals not absence but history; when he piles pigment on, it becomes armor. The result is a chorus that feels both present and alive.

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Yewande Kotun Davis 

Lead Curator | AYE Gallery & Altar Studio