Investec Cape Town Art Fair
kó is pleased to participate at the Investec Cape Town Art Fair, February 20–22, 2026. This presentation brings together new work by Diana Ejaita, Yagazie Emezi, Mobolaji Ogunrosoye, and Deborah Segun. Spanning painting, textile, and photographic collage, these artists reframe narratives that navigate alternative histories and the representation of women.
Yagazie Emezi creates multimedia textile works that explore indigenous motifs and the legacy of Uli design, an art form historically practiced by women. Deborah Segun creates abstract paintings that reflect on the geometric harmony of the mind and body, while Mobolaji Ogunrosoye collages the female form to create fragmented layers that suggest intricacy and psychological depth. Diana Ejaita’s paintings reflect quiet rituals of selfhood and desire, shaped by her experience of motherhood that evoke the strength and grace of femininity.
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.
Yagazie Emezi (b. 1989, Aba, Nigeria) creates multimedia textile works that incorporate hand-embroidered canvas prints on hemp fabric. Her works are rooted in stories of identity and cultural preservation, exploring the cultural legacy of Uli, a form of body art and wall painting practiced primarily by women in Southeastern Nigeria. Featuring geometric patterns and symbolic motifs rich in meaning, Emezi layers contemporary imagery within a traditional practice. Her work reflects an interest in reconnecting with ancestral wisdom and reviving indigenous knowledge, emphasizing the importance of intuition, memory, and tradition as vital sources of understanding.
Mobolaji Ogunrosoye (b. 1991, Lagos, Nigeria) uses the distortion of photography and collage to explore ideas around perception. Her practice is centered around the concept of ideation and the myriad ways in which images of the female body can be manipulated and reshaped. In the Portraits series, Ogunrosoye creates multi-layer collages that involve a transformative process of hand-cutting and layering. This technique adds depth and dimension, revealing underlying layers of images. The series addresses selfhood, body image, and the impact of societal influences on personal identity as it is related to Nigerian women. Once cut and reassembled, these portraits become defamiliarized, opening space for reimagining worlds in which women exist as complex, multi-layered figures.
Deborah Segun (b. 1994, Lagos, Nigeria) creates paintings that blend cubism and abstraction, taking a geometric approach that emphasizes form over detail. Drawing from personal and shared experiences as a woman and her observations of space, Segun exaggerates or displaces figures, isolates shapes, and recombines them into new compositions. Celebrating the diversity of women’s bodies, her voluptuous figures dominate the canvas with striking palettes, framed by sharp lines, overlapping forms, and multiple perspectives. Using warm, soft compositions and tonal contrasts, her work alludes to the alignment and harmony between the mind and body.
