Nengi Omuku joins Kasmin

A recurring subject in Omuku’s work is the social group—families and communities whose ambiguous presence suggests a contradiction. While we desire to gather and belong, we may also experience a sense of dislocation from our identity or society. The artist’s interest in bringing forth such unspoken social and psychological realities speaks both to the stories of her subjects—whom she has often photographed and painted in her studio—and to her reflections on rising civil unrest in Lagos, where political tensions have developed intergenerationally since the British colonization of Nigeria in 1884. Increasingly, Omuku’s use of the figure is drawn from sources in archival and contemporary media, further positioning the body as a site of triangulation for societal issues. 

Omuku’s landscapes, however, are those of the mind. Romantic and impressionistic, with distinctive palettes that demonstrate her profound sensitivity to color, they meld mesmerizing perspectival shifts with instinctive brushwork that appears to raise the image from the painting’s surface. The act of becoming—of bringing into being—reappears as a subject in the work through references to creationism, baptism, and ritual, while the paintings themselves are testaments to the imaginative power of belief, reverie, and empathy. Omuku’s spiritual and philosophical contemplations are the wellspring from which these images emerge. 

Omuku increasingly perceives her practice as a conversation with her medium. Through her heavily-researched use of sanyan, she explores its historical significance, touching on themes of gender and domesticity, national and ceremonial dress, and the endurance of indigenous culture in the face of colonial rule. Increasingly, her paintings’ subjects are depicted in patterned garments, with drapery used as a framing device. A recent body of work features cotton-spinners in Senegal in the process of producing the textiles. 

For all their splendor, the artist’s rich visions are tinged with pathos. Omuku’s desire for an experience of her pre-colonial homeland is entwined with their material, just as the producers of sanyan would traditionally include prayers in the form of symbolic markings in the fabric’s weave. Informed by a commitment to honor this past, Omuku’s sensational visions constitute an embodiment of our eternal present.

Omuku’s first presentation with Kasmin was marked with her inclusion in Dissolving Realms, curated by Katy Hessel, in 2022. In 2023 she was included in Rites of Passage, curated by Péjú Oshin at Gagosian, Britannia Street, London. In 2022, she staged the solo exhibition Parables of Joy at Pippy Houldsworth Gallery in London, and in 2023–24, she will mount a solo exhibition at Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery in Palm Beach, Florida; she has previously staged solo exhibitions at the gallery’s locations in Berlin (2021) and London (2020). Her work was presented as part of the Bangkok Art Biennale in 2022–23, coinciding with the debut of her first-ever installation, a monumental work at Art Basel Miami Beach 2022. In 2023, she was awarded the Civitella Ranieri Residency in Italy (2024) to follow a 2022–23 residency at Black Rock Senegal. Omuku has also earned numerous scholarships and awards, including the British Council CHOGM art award presented by HM Queen Elizabeth II. Commissions include a 2018 mural in an intensive care psychiatric ward at the Maudsley Hospital, London, from the Arts Council England. In 2021, she received a World Trade Organization Residency organized by African Art Foundation in Geneva. Omuku’s work can be found in international public and private collections including the Baltimore Museum of Art, the ICA Miami, the HSBC Art Collection, and the Loewe Art Collection, among others.