Christopher Samuel Idowu: The Secret Place

Idowu’s multidisciplinary practice—encompassing painting, drawing, mixed media, sound, and installation—reflects on themes of memory, transience, and transformation. His works capture moments that feel both earthly and ethereal, rendered in a palette that suggests natural earth tones, faded walls, or weathered patina. These muted tones are punctuated with subtle highlights, such as gold leaf or soft washes, that create a quiet sense of illumination. 

Working across materials including acrylic, conte crayon, charcoal, pastel, spray paint, and silkscreen printing, Idowu often combines several media within a single work. This layered approach results in richly tactile surfaces. His frequent use of silkscreen and gestural mark-making reflects an interest in repetition, erosion, and memory—recalling aged prints, faded photographs, or spiritual relics. 

His compositions often center on the human figure, portrayed in contemplative or symbolic states that are partially obscured, silhouetted, or veiled. Other works lean into abstraction, suggesting moments of divine encounter. Titles often reference Christian scripture and parables, allowing the works to function as contemporary icons. Many are produced in serial format as diptychs or triptychs, mirroring the structures of spiritual practice. Infused with a devotional sensibility, The Secret Place becomes both sanctuary and testimony—a sacred space where the interior life meets the external world. 

About Christopher Samuel Idowu 
Christopher Samuel Idowu (b. 1995, Lagos, Nigeria) grew up in the costal town of Badagry and was raised on a mission. He studied painting at Yaba College of Technology, graduating in 2021. In 2025, he participated in the Dot Ateliers Residency Program in Accra, Ghana, and is featured in the exhibition Some Things Just Don’t Wash Off at Dot Ateliers (July 2025). He was previously an artist-in-residence at La Fourchette de Roze in Grand-Bassam, Côte d’Ivoire (2024), and at The Nomad Artist, an initiative of Adewale Alimi, in Lagos (2020). He was selected for the TILGA Fund Grand Collaboration in 2020 and was a fellow of the Art in Medicine Fellowship in Lagos in 2018.

Idowu has participated in group exhibitions with kó, Rele Gallery, SOTO Gallery, SMO Contemporary, Mydrim Gallery, and Yaba Art Museum. His work has been presented at art fairs including Art X Lagos, +234 Art Fair, and the IDesign Affordable Art Fair. Idowu’s practice also includes community-engaged projects. His first solo exhibition, My Benue Diary: Community Art Project, took place in Tyowanye, Buruku, Benue State, Nigeria in 2023. His work is held in the collection of the Toledo Museum of Art, USA.