Juju Ishmael’s work explores the dissolution of boundaries, both metaphorically and within the painting process. The paintings often feature solitary, near life-sized, realist figures in environments that mirror the subjects’ states of being, dissolving the boundaries between their inner and outer worlds.
Ishmael paints to dissolve the boundaries between figure and ground, using brushstrokes and colors that interrupt and confuse these divisions. Central to the work is  the interplay between the figure’s subjective perceptions and their outer world; the dialectic between finding meaning and making meaning in a temporal experience.