If you were to map Nigerian art history through the women who shaped it, the story would stretch from village pottery compounds to global biennales, from sacred groves to white-cube galleries in Venice and London.
Efuru and the Woman of the Lake, presented by Adegbola Gallery, reads like that map.
Inspired by Efuru by Flora Nwapa, this exhibition is a generational roll call. A gathering of foundational figures and contemporary visionaries whose art have defined, challenged, and expanded the space for women within Nigerian art.
From the quiet radicalism of Ladi Kwali, who elevated Gwari pottery to global recognition, to the modernist force of Clara Etso Ugbodaga-Ngu, who shaped art education and intellectual discourse in post-independence Nigeria, the exhibition anchors itself in the women who built the ground we now stand on.
Adegbola Gallery presents Efuru and the Woman of the Lake, which shines a spotlight on works that tell the story of women through art from the 1940s to the present day.
Featured works include pieces by pioneering artists whose practices helped redefine women’s roles within Nigerian art history, such as:
Ladi Kwali
Ladi Kwali (c. 1925-1984) was a Nigerian ceramicist who bridged indigenous Gwari pottery traditions with modern studio ceramics. Trained from childhood, she later joined the Abuja Pottery Training Centre, where she combined hand-building techniques with wheel throwing and glazing. Her works gained international acclaim and are held in major institutions, including the Smithsonian and Victoria & Albert Museum. Kwali remains a foundational figure in African ceramics and appears on Nigeria’s 20 ₦ note.
Clara Etso Ugbodaga-Ngu:
Clara Etso Ugbodaga-Ngu (1921-1996) was a Nigerian modernist artist and educator whose vibrant compositions played a foundational role in the development of modern Nigerian art. Educated at the Chelsea School of Art, London, she became the first Nigerian woman to serve as a professor at the Nigerian College of Arts, Science, and Technology in Zaria. A mentor to artists, including Uche Okeke and Bruce Onabrakpeya, she helped shape the intellectual climate that produced the Zaria Art Society. Her legacy endures through her art and her transformative impact on visual art education in Nigeria.
Susanne Wenger:
Susanne Wenger (1915-2009), also known as Adunni Olorisha, was an Austrian-born Nigerian artist and Yoruba priestess devoted to the preservation of indigenous spirituality. A central figure in the Osogbo art movement, she is best known for her monumental sculptural work at the Osun-Osogbo Sacred Grove. Blending Yoruba cosmology with modern forms, her practice reimagines sacred spaces while remaining rooted in ritual community. Her advocacy contributed to the grove’s designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Theresa Luck-Akinwale:
Theresa Luck-Akinwale (b. 1934) is a Nigerian painter celebrated for her accomplished portraiture and dedication to arts education. Trained in Nigeria and the United Kingdom, including at Camberwell School of Arts and City & Guilds of London Art School, she received high-profile portrait commissions of notable global figures, including Haile Selassie, Obafemi Awolowo, Shehu Shagari, John F. Kennedy, and Queen Elizabeth II. Upon returning to Nigeria, she played a significant role in arts pedagogy at leading institutions, including The Polytechnic, Ibadan, and later at the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University). Her legacy bridges artistic excellence and mentorship, alongside works by newer generations of artists:
Polly Alakija
Polly Alakija (b. 1966) is a British-Nigerian multidisciplinary artist, muralist, children’s author, and educator. Her practice explores womanhood, community, and urban life through expressive figurative and abstract forms. Known for major public murals in Lagos, including the Falomo Under-bridge tribute to the #BringBackOurGirls movement, her work bridged art and activism.
Peju Alatise
Peju Alatise (b. 1975) is a Nigerian multidisciplinary artist, poet, and writer whose work spans sculpture and mixed media. Influenced by Yoruba mythology and social realities, she addresses themes of gender, politics, and Afro-feminism. She represented Nigeria at the 57th Venice Biennale and is widely recognised for her installation entitled Flying Girls. Alatise is also the founder of the ANAI Foundation, supporting visual artists.
Olufunke Esekhalu Ojukwu
Olufunke Esekhalu Ojukwu (b. 1981) is a Nigerian visual artist whose practice explores community, gender equality, and cultural tradition. Moving from recycled sculptural forms to painting, her recent works foreground African women as interconnected protagonists bound by shared strength. Inspired by the Yoruba adage “Aaro meta kii da obe nu,” her work emphasises collective resilience and sisterhood. She has exhibited locally and internationally and remains active in mentorship and arts education.
Ndidi Emefiele
Ndidi Emefiele (b. 1987) is a Nigerian painter known for her large-scale canvases, vivid palettes, and bold brushwork. A graduate of Delta State University and the Slade School of Fine Art, London, her work centres on Black women, creating spaces of autonomy and self-possession. Often depicted wearing glasses as symbols of protection and resilience, her figures reflect empowerment within complex social landscapes. Her works are held in prominent international private collections, including Beyoncé’s and Misty Copeland’s.
Nengi Omuku
Nengi Omuku (b. 1987) is a Nigerian contemporary painter whose figurative works explore identity, belonging, and transformation. Painting on strips of traditional Sanyan Aso Oke fabric, she creates saturated, dreamlike compositions where body and landscape merge. A graduate of the Slade School of Fine Art, her work has been exhibited internationally and is held in major public and private collections. She is also the founder of The Art of Healing (TAOH).
Haneefah Adam
Haneefah Adam (b. 1992) is a Nigerian multidisciplinary artist internationally recognised for pioneering the use of food as an artistic medium. Trained in medical sciences with an MSc in Pharmacology from Coventry University, she explores identity, memory, culture, and motherhood across painting, installation, textiles, and photography. Her work reframes women, particularly African women, as authors within systems of labour and visual culture. A recipient of The Future Awards Africa Prize for Art (2024), she has exhibited widely and collaborated with global institutions and brands.
Ayobola Kekere-Ekun
Ayobola “Zak” Kekere-Ekun (b. 1993) is a Nigerian artist born in Lagos and currently based in South Africa. Trained in Visual Arts at the University of Lagos and holding a PhD in Art and Design from the University of Johannesburg, her practice explores materiality, memory, and perception through folded and manipulated surfaces. Moving from her internationally recognised quilling techniques in paper to fabric, her sculptural forms evoke imagined landscapes shaped by tension, gravity, and repetition. She has exhibited internationally and is a recipient of the ABSA L’Atelier Award and the Future Awards Prize for Creativity.
Osaru Obaseki
Osaru Obaseki (b. 1993) is a Nigerian multidisciplinary artist working across painting, sculpture, and installation. Incorporating materials such as sand, bronze, glass, and earth, her practice interrogates memory, cultural identity, and postcolonial histories. Through material dialogue, she bridges ancestral pasts and contemporary realities, treating art-making as an act of reclamation and continuity. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including most recently Africa Basel, Switzerland (2025); Horniman Museum, UK (2024); Glasstress – Berengo Studios, Murano, Italy (2024); ICCROM General Assembly, Rome (2023); AKKA Project, Venice, Italy (2023); Young Contemporaries, National Museum Lagos, Nigeria (2020); and Re-Entanglement Project, Benin, Nigeria (2020).
Semilore Delano
Oluwasemilore Delano (b 1998) is a Nigerian artist working between Lagos and London, exploring the figure as a site of perception, memory, and Black embodiment. Through materials such as oil, concrete, charcoal, and sand, she interrogates how Blackness is seen and understood. A graduate of Cambridge University and Oxford, her work has been exhibited at Tate Britain and internationally recognised through multiple awards. Her practice blends abstraction and material sensitivity to reshape visual narratives.
Falilat Ibrahim
Falilat Ibrahim (b. 2001) is a Lagos-based sculptor whose practice centres on traditional stone carving and the expressive potential of materials including metal, clay, and concrete. A Fine Art graduate of the University of Lagos, she employs a subtractive process that reveals feminine forms from within the stone’s natural fractures and irregularities. Her work explores womanhood, resilience, and cultural continuity, emphasising strength and boundless possibility through rigid, enduring materials. Inspired in part by Ben Enwonwu, she bridges traditional technique and contemporary narrative.
Working across painting, sculpture, textiles, and mixed media, Efuru and the Woman of the Lake asks how women’s stories are told, remembered, and reimagined.
Taking its cue from Nwapa’s iconic protagonist, Efuru, a woman negotiating independence, societal expectation, disappointment, loss, and power, the exhibition traces visual narratives of women’s lives. Efuru’s struggles remain as real today as they were in 1966 when the novel was published. These realities are mirrored and interpreted through the lenses of our remarkably talented artists on view.
About Adegbola Gallery
Adegbola Gallery is a Lagos-based gallery founded in 2025. The gallery presents a focused programme of exhibitions and projects centred on artists whose practices are research-led and materially rigorous, with particular attention to questions of space, history, and perception. Within the primary market, Adegbola Gallery supports artists at key moments of development through solo exhibitions, curated group shows, and longer-term project-based collaborations. On the secondary market, Adegbola Gallery excels at highlighting the works of 20th-century modernists, who are foundational to the contemporary art scene in Nigeria today.
Alongside its exhibition programme, the gallery is actively engaged in public art initiatives and institutional partnerships in Lagos, working with civic bodies, architects, and cultural organisations to situate contemporary art within urban and public contexts. The gallery’s approach prioritises clarity of vision, critical depth, and sustained artist development, rather than breadth of representation.
Visitor Information
Exhibition Opening: Saturday 7th March 2026, 12 pm General Gallery Admission: Free
Gallery Opening Times: Monday – Friday 10 am – 6 pm, Saturdays 11 am – 6 pm Address: 1619 Danmole Street, Victoria Island, Lagos, Nigeria
0 Comments
Add your own hot takes