Painting The Diaspora

Papay Solomon’s portraits tell untold stories of immigrants and refugees

- Erin E. Rand

When Papay Solomon transferred to Arizona State University two years ago, he painted realistic portraits that were, in his words, “without substance.” He knew that he wanted to paint something with more voice, but he wasn’t sure what, until an assignment from a professor launched a journey of self-discovery.

The assignment was for students to put their own spin on an Old Master’s painting. Solomon immediately thought of Jan van Eyck’s Portrait of a Man in a Red Turban, which is often thought to be a self-portrait of the artist. “A turban is a very African thing, and I took that visual and tried to bring it back home,” he explains. In the resulting painting, K.O.S. (Knowledge of Self ), Self Portrait, Solomon portrays himself in a Renaissance-inspired pose, staring directly into the viewer’s eyes. But instead of van Eyck’s chaperon hood that was the height of fashion during the 1400s, the turban on top of his head is distinctly African.

Solomon describes himself as being born “between borders.” In 1993, while his mother was pregnant with him, she fled from Liberia to Guinea due to a civil war. He was born in Guinea, and lived there for five years, until he and his family were relocated to a refugee camp because the country had its own civil crisis. After another five years, there was another refugee camp, before he finally arrived in the United States in 2008.