Editor’s Note: This story was commissioned by art curator and CNN Style’s guest editor, Alayo Akinkugbe. Click here to read more about Akinkugbe and her work.
At Frieze London this year, three large artworks by the artist Nengi Omuku were hung away from the walls so viewers could walk around them. With each work, one side offered a vibrant nature-filled painting. The other presented strips of sanyan, a thick traditional Nigerian fabric that Omuku uses to replace the usual canvas fabric painters often use as their base. “The fact I’m painting on a vintage surface gives soul to my work,” Omuku said over Zoom two days before the fair opens. For the 37-year-old, the fabric she works on has become as crucial as her paintings themselves. “Even when it’s not a vintage surface, it’s a surface that has been made collaboratively with craftsmen from Nigeria.”
The London- and Lagos-based painter was chosen to exhibit her work at Frieze London by renowned interdisciplinary artist Yinka Shonibare as part of Frieze’s Artist-to-Artist initiative, whereby established figures choose a more emerging one to have a solo exhibition at the fair. But calling Omuku ‘emerging’ is something of an understatement in what has already been a thriving career.
Since completing her undergraduate and master’s degrees in fine art from the prestigious Slade School of Fine Art in 2012, Omuku has shown in major cities across the globe, including London, Paris, Bangkok, and New York. Her work can also be found in private and public collections, including at the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami (ICA Miami), and the Loewe Art Collection. She is also represented by three major galleries: Pippy Houldsworth Gallery and Kristin Hjellegjerde, both in London, and The Kasmin Gallery in New York. And most recently, British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, selected her piece “All Things Being Equal” (2024) to be hung at 10 Downing Street.
Omuku’s choice to use sanyan initially came from a place of necessity but has now become an integral part of her practice. “I worked on canvas for a little while, but eventually shifted to working on sanyan, which is a pre-colonial Yoruba textile,” she told CNN in a video call, adding that she “made the switch” after eight years of studying in the UK. “I was trying to rediscover myself and my identity,” she said. “When I moved back to Nigeria, I couldn’t find high-quality canvas, and I was also really fascinated by how, as Nigerians, we identify ourselves through our clothes.” However, she found sanyan more appealing than other more contemporary fabrics because of when it was made. “I was introduced to it by a friend when I was in Lagos and had this deep connection with the textile on many levels,” Omuku said. “I’d never seen a pre-colonial Nigerian textile before, and it looked quite similar to linen.”
This journey has also allowed Omuku to consider how her artmaking could merge with her Nigerian culture by learning “how to prepare the surface for painting while still honouring the textile.” This journey began by working on vintage textiles found in local markets before eventually moving on to finding people who make sanyan. “I still paint on vintage textiles, but through going to different places, like Dakar, in Senegal, I’ve learned how to spin cotton,” she said. “Now we work with a family of cotton spinners to make sanyan specifically for paintings.” She noted there’s also an element of historical preservation here as cotton spinners are dying out due to fast fashion. “People had even told me it was extinct,” she said.
Aesthetically, Omuku’s paintings often place abstract human figures in dream-like natural environments as a way to consider the collective experiences of Nigerians. In her largest painting at Frieze, titled “Swing Low” (2024), the figures appear to be strolling through a beautiful landscape. “But in the background, I put in images that I’d seen in press clippings of people fleeing a political rally and tumbling over each other,” she said. “Those people tumble continuously and become an abstract mark that continues into the sky.”
Omuku’s initial intention for the fair was to paint “uninterrupted landscapes,” but it became increasingly more difficult for her to do this as images of “chaos and fighting” were “flashing through my mind like nightmares.” These motifs and explorations have become more prevalent since returning to Nigeria after studying at the Slade. Omuku said she initially focused on her own interiority but noticed “a huge mental health crisis” in the country. “And that’s when I started thinking a little more about the collective,” she said. “How we were experiencing things as Nigerians, how we’re going through trauma and corruption and political unrest, and all of these things that happen every day that we live in and with.”
With an emphasis on the natural world and the captivating fabrics her compositions are painted on, it would be surprising if looking at Omuku’s work didn’t conjure up warm feelings. However, what Omuku has shown and what has given her resounding favour globally is that these pieces go beyond what is seen on the surface. “Even though the paintings look quite whimsical, they actually take quite a bit of planning,” she said “I’m trying to remind people of this beautiful place that we call our world and that we don’t have to make it ugly.”