Little Devil
- Artist: Frida Orupabo
- Date: 2022
- Medium: Photographs, inkjet prints on paper and metal paper fasteners
- Dimensions: frame: 1585 × 990 × 58 mm
- Museum: Tate Modern
- Collection record: Tate Modern website
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About this artwork
This is "Little Devil" by Frida Orupabo. It was created in 2022 as a large collage using photographs, inkjet prints, and metal pins. Orupabo scoured online sources for images—doll‑clothing shots from eBay, a film still from Elliott Erwitt, and an anonymous Black face—then cut them out and assembled them on a plain white background. The result looks like a paper doll with moving parts, the girl’s torso pinned to a black, wing‑topped creature hovering over her shoulder, clutching a scroll. That creature draws on medieval depictions of demons, while the girl’s face fuses a white actress with a Black woman, echoing the artist’s own Christian upbringing and the isolation she felt as a Black person in Norway. The work comments on how gender, beauty, and morality are constructed, and it invites viewers to consider how the white gaze shapes identity. It’s a striking example of digital collage turned physical, built from found images to challenge our assumptions.
See it in person
Little Devil is in the collection of Tate Modern on Bankside, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
