The Armory Show: Diana Ejaita

24 - 27 September 2026 
Overview
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kó is pleased to participate in The Armory Show, New York, with a solo presentation by Diana Ejaita featuring new paintings and works on paper. This presentation is featured in the Presents sector, Booth P50.


Diana Ejaita (b. 1985, Cremona, Italy) is a Nigerian-Italian artist whose practice is shaped by migration and the intersection of cultural forms. Drawing from West African literature and textile traditions, her paintings and drawings create layered associations between bodies, symbolic objects, and mythological imagery.

 

Central to Ejaita's practice is the tradition of nature morte, or still life, reimagined through what she describes as "visual prayers." Ejaita transforms the static arrangement of traditional still life into fluid scenes where objects and figures interact and take on new meanings. Vessels and silhouettes overlap and flow across the surface, shifting between the recognizable and the abstract. Many of these elements appear sculptural, suggestive of objects of devotion. For Ejaita, they evoke the layered nature of human experience and memory.

 

Ejaita often produces works as sets of small-scale paintings arranged in grid-like installations, allowing individual works to echo as chapters of a larger narrative. For this presentation, each painting set is composed of nine individual works conceived as a cohesive whole. Ejaita has also produced new works on paper using colored pencil and graphite, combining intricate drafting and subtle shading to create definition and depth.

 

The visual references that inform Ejaita’s work are rooted in her own experience. Born to a Nigerian father and Italian mother, she grew up in Italy and is now based between Berlin, Lagos, and Milan. Moving between these places has shaped her interest in how cultural histories are carried through different forms of expression. West African literature offers narrative structures in which histories and myths overlap, while textile traditions build meaning through repetition, pattern, and symbolic motifs. Together, they shape the layered visual language of her work.

Works
Installation Views
Press release

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Diana Ejaita studied Fine Art at Rennes 2 Arts Plastiques in France and HBK Braunschweig in Germany. Alongside her fine art practice, Ejaita is internationally recognized for her illustration work and has collaborated with fashion brands, reflecting a practice that moves fluidly between contemporary art, illustration, and design. Her illustrations have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The Economist, Vogue, and Financial Times. Since first contributing to The New Yorker in 2019, Ejaita has created eleven covers for the magazine, most recently Before the Plunge for its August 24 & 31, 2026 issue.

 

She is the author and illustrator of eight children’s books, including Olu & Greta (2022), Our World: Nigeria with Bunmi Emenanjo (2025), and Making Art (2025), which received The New York Times Best Illustrated Children’s Books Award in 2025. Her commercial collaborations include a series of wallets for Comme des Garçons and homeware for H&M. In 2025–26, kó presented Ejaita’s work at Art SG, Singapore; Investec Cape Town Art Fair, South Africa; and ART X Lagos, Nigeria.

 

Ejaita’s recent solo exhibitions include Exercises of Liberation at kó, Lagos (2025), and Onajite, l’Attesa at Galerie Wedding, Berlin (2024). Recent group exhibitions include Afrobeat Rebellion, A White Space, Lagos (2025); The Unfinished Conversation, Kunstmuseum Ravensburg (2025); the Dakar Biennale with Archive Books (2024); Beyond Veils, Rele Gallery, Lagos (2024); XNL Fenestella, Ashiko Studios Gallery, Italy (2024); O Quilombismo, HKW, Berlin (2023); High Five. Die Sammlung in Bewegung, Erlangen, Germany (2023); 4+3=1, SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin (2022); Long Distance Call, Kunstpalais Erlangen (2022); and Midnight Feast, Chandran Gallery, San Francisco (2022).

In 2023, Ejaita received the Villa Romana Prize and Fellowship in Florence, Italy. She has participated in residencies at Waaw in Saint-Louis, Senegal, and the Arthouse Foundation in Lagos. In 2022, she took part in The Restitution Project, a travel residency with SAVVY Contemporary in Benin City, Nigeria, a collaboration between SAVVY Contemporary and Villa Romana in Florence, Italy. In 2021, she participated in a collaboration with bronze foundries in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.

 

Upcoming exhibitions include What Lies Below Is Another Above, the Villa Romana Fellows group exhibition at Kunsthalle Recklinghausen, Recklinghausen, Germany (September 2026), and a solo exhibition at Engen Museum, Germany (April 2027). Ejaita is based between Berlin, Lagos, and Milan.