Where the Painting Leads: The Intuitive Art of Goldie

By: Chieloka Anadu

Goldie rarely knows how a painting will end when she begins it, and she likes it that way. Born Wendy Olaitan Idowu and working under the name Goldie, she is a self-taught painter whose figurative, symbolic work explores identity, heritage, memory, strength, growth, and the human experience. Her process is intuitive: she might start from an idea, a feeling, a person, a symbol, or simply an image that surfaces in her mind, then let the work develop from there. Some of her paintings are geometric and structured, others fluid and expressive. “The common thread isn’t necessarily a particular style,” she says, “but the meaning behind the work and what I am trying to communicate through it.”

Inspiration, for her, can come from almost anywhere: an experience, a feeling, a conversation, something observed, her cultural heritage, or an idea that simply won’t leave her mind. She is drawn to symbolism, and sometimes an image arrives already carrying a deeper meaning that she knows she wants to communicate. At other times it is a colour, a shape, or a composition that pulls her in, and she starts painting without knowing where the piece will land. “I don’t always want to know the ending before I begin,” she explains. “Sometimes the painting reveals itself to me as I work on it.”

When it comes to influences, her answer is deliberately unconventional. She doesn’t consciously follow many artists, and that is a choice. Because her process is so intuitive, she avoids spending much time with other artists’ work, wary of being distracted by someone else’s visual language or slipping into comparison. She respects the many traditions within art, but says her strongest influences come from her own experiences, environment, culture, memories, and the things she observes and thinks about. Her style, as she describes it, “has developed organically from my own way of seeing and interpreting the world.” The one clear exception is personal rather than stylistic: her biggest push into art was her grandfather, himself an artist, whom she dreamt of one day becoming like.

Her approach to materials and technique is layered and responsive. Goldie builds an image gradually through colour, form, contrast, texture, and pattern until the composition begins to come together. She enjoys using geometric shapes and strong areas of colour because they give her structure while leaving room for symbolism and emotion. She is also unafraid to change a painting mid-process, adding, removing, shifting a colour, or rethinking part of the composition entirely. Her process, she says, “isn’t necessarily about following a rigid formula. It’s about building, responding to the painting and refining it until it feels right.”

She doesn’t believe in forcing creativity. When inspiration is absent, she steps away, and often returns to a painting later to find she sees it differently. Sometimes the answer comes from doing something entirely unrelated to painting. She has also come to understand that a block doesn’t mean nothing is happening: “Sometimes your mind is still processing an idea, and you simply haven’t figured out how you want to express it yet.” So she gives that process the space it needs.

If her artwork could speak, she believes it would say: “Look again.” Her paintings may first draw a viewer in through colour, figures, patterns, or composition, but there is usually something underneath that first impression. She hopes people will find something of themselves in the work, whether memories, struggles, strength, identity, growth, or aspirations, and she prefers to leave room for interpretation rather than tell anyone exactly what to see, so that viewers might discover a part of themselves in the process.

Participating in the Anadu Art Fair offers Goldie a chance to bring her work into a space where it can be experienced beyond her studio and beyond a digital screen. Having work seen matters to her, but she says it matters equally for people to engage with the ideas behind it, since art can open conversations that words alone sometimes cannot. Professionally, the fair connects her with other artists, collectors, and people who appreciate art while she continues to develop her practice. Personally, it carries a quieter significance: every painting represents a part of her journey, and allowing other people into that world is, in her words, “quite special.”

Follow Goldie’s Journey on Instagram: artbygoldie_