Broadening the Picture

Tunji Adeniyi-Jones revels in the opportunity to see, in the flesh, the work of so many of the artists most influential to his practice

When I was at school in London, my grandma, who spent her whole life in Nigeria, gave me several huge books that introduced me to a range of art from across the African continent. I didn’t have the chance then to view any of this work in person, and even now, few exhibitions display the full breadth of work by the generation that inspired so many of the contemporary Nigerian diasporic artists working today.

After going to the opening of the Nigerian Modernism exhibition at Tate Modern, I returned three more times with friends and family. It felt incredibly significant to see the work of all these artists gathered in the same place: Ben Enwonwu, Yusuf Grillo, Jimo Akolo, Ndidi Dike, Bruce Onobrakpeya, Uche Okeke, Demas Nwoko… all of whom have been an inspiration to me over the years. It is also valuable to read information directly from the surface of a painting and one really benefits from seeing the vibrant pigments and brilliant surfaces in the flesh. It allows people to arrive with one understanding and to leave with something much richer.

I was immediately drawn to a gallery of Enwonwu’s work, featuring a generous hang of his paintings, which surrounded a selection of carved wooden sculptures. Enwonwu’s Negritude series of paintings were particularly important in helping me to find my own formal language as an artist. Working with silhouettes and tight framing, his dynamic, dancing bodies hit the edges of the canvas. His work seems to reference classical European painting, but then breaks that mould by flattening the figure and refusing to show the full dimensionality of the body; a sense of depth is conveyed through sharp edges and outlines instead. This style spoke to me when I was learning to paint, because it felt like an accessible entry point to developing a distinctive language. People have come to associate my work with conveying a sense of movement, and I can attribute that to my appreciation of the fluidity of Enwonwu’s painting.

Grillo’s use of colour has also greatly influenced me, so I was delighted to see his work in the show. The colours with which he chooses to paint clothes, backgrounds and skin tones have a real depth and an almost overwhelming emotional quality. Likewise, the gallery dedicated to the Osun-Osogbo Sacred Grove in southwestern Nigeria also affected me deeply. I visited that site a couple of years ago and was struck by its heavy, spiritual quality. Susanne Wenger’s large-format dyed textile works particularly resonated with me; I try to imbue my work with a similar sense of presence – something almost supernatural that is difficult to define.

A lot of the work in the exhibition feels incredibly contemporary – visually ahead of its time – and I was struck by some of the intricate, interesting, eerie, strange and off-centre works in the show, which break down the slightly confining visual definitions of African art that have followed the increased interest in it over the past few decades. I was also reminded how remarkable it is to make work like this in a hot and humid climate, which is much harsher on materials and creates tougher working conditions in general.

Having spent my life visiting British art institutions, I never would have dreamed of seeing a show of Nigerian art of this scale and generosity here. After my last visit, I couldn’t help but reflect on how profound an impact this exhibition would have had on me as a younger artist too – particularly when I was still trying to find a visual language at school or as an undergraduate, or even before I left the UK to move to the US a decade ago. I came away feeling that it had put my own work into context in a way that I hadn’t expected. It helped me to understand what I’m doing now and what I might continue to do, as well as what has already been done long before me.

^{Tunji Adeniyi-Jones is a British-Nigerian painter who lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. He talked to Enrico Tassi.}

Nengi Omuku sees in Muraina Oyelami’s layered painting a chronicle of a process and the passage of time

One of the privileges of being an artist is sometimes being intimately welcomed into collectors’ homes to view their private collections. In Lagos, Nigeria, where I live, these opportunities have become a reliable place to view rich bodies of work by Nigerian modernists, access that is otherwise constrained by the uneven presence of public institutions locally. It was on one of these rare, revelatory occasions that I first encountered a painting by Muraina Oyelami (b.1940).

Entering the collector’s house, I passed through a foyer where there hung a painting of a landscape bathed in hushed, muted tones with figures gathered in the foreground. But the subject matter engaged me less than what the image disclosed about the artist’s sustained preoccupation with oil paint. Oyelami’s method reflects an intentional, patient overlaying of colour, with initial layers persisting beneath subsequent ones. The final surface offers glimpses of earlier layers and becomes the record of painting as process, memory and the passage of time.

In a publication from 1959, the German academic and writer Ulli Beier contended that painting was not regarded as an important form of pre-colonial Nigerian art, because the artist’s talent expressed itself more directly in wood carving and bronze casting. Yet he noted that painting did exist in the form of natural pigments (ochre, camwood and indigo) applied directly onto the walls of shrines. Given that this form of painting was impermanent and frequently washed away by rain, artists would add additional layers atop the traces of existing murals, resulting in a style in which earlier colours would remain visible through the veil of subsequent layers.

It is in this context that I now look at Oyelami’s painting Shrine 1965 hanging at Tate Modern. It can be read as a portrait of those shrine walls – a sacred architecture that would have been present in Oyelami’s youth – and a kinetic memory of those façades, distinguished through colour.

The hidden hues in Oyelami’s work resist dissolution beneath the final layer. The eye travels upward, beyond the white shroud, to an ensemble of colours that map the space. The central black mark is embraced by ochre, and bound in a concentric sequence by indigo, white and trembling red lines. The work resonates with the palette of murals found on shrines, a lived geography of colour transposed into a self-contained painting.

Oyelami is part of a lineage of painters who treat pigment not only as a vehicle of depiction, but as a sedimentary archive. The surface of his work is not a pristine skin but a palimpsest, where colours converse in a rhythmic cadence. In this way, Oyelami’s work extends beyond figurative depiction to an interrogation of material memory.

^{Nengi Omuku is an artist who works between Lagos and London.}

Okiki Akinfe pauses for a moment in the exhibition’s last gallery, dedicated to the work of Uzo Egonu

My thoughts keep returning to the very last room of the Nigerian Modernism exhibition, a brilliant final note exploring the life and work of Uzo Egonu (1931–1996). After galleries full of paintings and sculptures bursting with colour and motion, these paintings and prints are equally powerful. Somehow soothing in nature, they stand out with their limited, harmonious palette, showing a great understanding of both colour and restraint.

I’m particularly drawn to Egonu’s Stateless People 1980–2 paintings, which he made not long after cataracts had developed in both his eyes, causing him to turn to mixing colours from memory. His figures are so minimal and yet contain the essential information to convey what a person is doing. I find that balance very enticing. The compositions reveal a trust in his audience to come to their own understanding of an image.

The title Stateless People speaks to the idea of moving between countries – which Egonu himself had experienced, emigrating from Nigeria to the UK as a young teenager just after the Second World War. There is also a quiet distance and ambiguity to the figures he depicts. You can’t quite tell what state they’re in, emotionally or physically. There is a suggestion of rhythm and movement in each picture, but these people also appear still, almost stoic. In one of the paintings, Egonu’s figure could be either reading or dancing, his eyes gently closed. Basking in serenity.

I’m reminded of Kevin Quashie’s book The Sovereignty of Quiet (2012), which has become popular among many of the young Black and diasporic artists I know. We discuss the struggle to be active and to practice our own realms of quiet, and the competing demands of making a living out of our art and not overextending or compromising ourselves, all while giving the necessary time to process what’s happening in the world, and to make and develop our work. In this image of diasporic rest, I see a conversation that links Egonu’s work to that of many artists working today.

Though Egonu would only return to Nigeria once in his lifetime – in 1977, to participate in the landmark Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTAC) as a representative of the diaspora in the UK – a sense of nationalist pride sustained his life and work. To first and second-generation Nigerian diaspora artists, like myself, Egonu is a foundational contributor to our cultural landscape. His is a story of the persistence of creativity and the will to create a space for one’s own identity. His legacy enriches conversations about the dynamic potential of contemporary Nigerian culture and embodies the enduring cultural bridge between Lagos and London.

^{Okiki Akinfe is a British-Nigerian artist based in London.}

^{Nigerian Modernism, Tate Modern, until 10 May 2026}

^{In partnership with Access Holdings and Coronation Group. Supported by Ford Foundation, The A. G. Leventis Foundation, and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. With additional support from the Nigerian Modernism Exhibition Supporters Circle, Tate International Council, Tate Patrons and Tate Americas Foundation.}