Art SG (Singapore)
kó is pleased to participate at Art SG, January 22-25, 2026, at Marina Bay Sands, Singapore. This presentation engages a cross-generational dialogue of artistic practices in Nigeria, featuring modernist Obiora Udechukwu alongside contemporary artists Modupeola Fadugba and Diana Ejaita. Spanning several decades, between the 1960s and the present, this group presentation explores how these artists reflect on themes of memory, ritual, and form, rom Udechukwu’s early expressions of conflict and cultural recovery, to Fadugba’s re-imagining of community and celebration, to Ejaita’s quiet rituals of selfhood and desire.
Obiora Udechukwu (b. 1946, Onitsha, Nigeria) emerged early in his career as a key figure in Nigerian modernism and was a founding member of the AKA Circle of Exhibiting Artists, a group founded in the 1980s alongside El Anatsui. As a pioneer of the Nsukka School, he developed a distinctive style that merged traditional Igbo design systems, particularly Uli and Nsibidi, with figurative composition to explore social and political realities. His early works respond directly to the trauma of the Nigerian Civil War, reflecting on the devastating impact of the flight over Biafra. In more recent works on paper, Udechukwu explores the tradition of Uli art, known for its rhythmic lines, symbolic gestures, and abstract forms, to explore broader philosophical and spiritual concerns.
Modupeola Fadugba (b. 1985, Lome, Togo) is a Nigerian artist whose recent series reflects the cultural significance of the Ojude Oba Festival, a celebration of Yoruba heritage that reflects deep communal ties and pride. The festival honors the powerful bond between the Monarch and his people in Ijebuland, symbolizing identity, unity, and collective purpose. Her recent works focus on the everyday labor and intimate acts of preparation that underlie the festival, foregrounding the skilled hands and local craft traditions behind its pageantry. Trained in chemical engineering, Fadugba brings a unique technical precision to her process, rendered in layered surfaces of beads, graphite, ink, gold leaf, acrylic, and delicately burned paper. Inspired by the refinement of Japanese surimono prints, she incorporates visible pencil lines and unfinished elements to emphasize process and the richness of detail.
Diana Ejaita (b. 1985, Cremona Italy) is a Nigerian-Italian artist who explores cultural identity through the condition of migration, shaped by movement between histories, geographies, and inherited forms. Working across painting, drawing, sculpture, and print-based installation, her work draws from West African literature, oral storytelling, and textile traditions, translating these sources into a refined visual language of distilled figures, symbolic objects, and expansive negative space. Central to her practice is the idea of the nature morte (still life) or “visual prayers”, which she reimagines as an active assemblage of cultural symbols, motifs, and natural forms in densely layered compositions. Recurring elements such as cow horns, plants, shells, the body, circles, crowns, and natural fibers serve as metaphors for strength and interconnectedness. Alongside her fine art practice, Diana Ejaita is internationally recognized for her illustration work. She has created ten covers for The New Yorker, received the New York Times/New York Public Library Best Illustrated Children’s Book Award in 2025, and has been commissioned by leading fashion brands including Comme des Garçons and H&M, reflecting a practice that moves fluidly between contemporary art, illustration, and design.
