A shirt can tell you where someone’s from. But it rarely tells you the whole story.
London-based artist Jil Mandeng knows that better than most.
With Cameroonian, Polish and German heritage, and an upbringing spent moving between countries, questions around identity and belonging have always been close to her work. Where are you from? Where did you grow up? Where feels like home? Simple questions. Not always simple answers.
In her recent paintings, Jil uses football to explore that tension, pairing iconic shirts with traditional masks from cultures around the world. It’s a combination that makes sense.
Football loves putting identity into neat boxes. One badge. One flag. One nation. But the people wearing those shirts and the people supporting them, are often far more complicated.
We inherit teams from our parents. Follow countries we weren’t born in. Feel at home in cities thousands of miles from where our families started. A shirt can represent a birthplace, a childhood, a family connection or somewhere we simply chose to belong.
Jil brings those different threads together in the same image. No need to pick a side. No need to reduce identity to one flag.
Because football has always been about belonging. Just not always to one place.
Discover more of Jil Mandeng’s work at @jilmandengart
Leave a comment