By Ifeoluwa Olutayo
At the Alliance Française, Ikoyi, Lagos, I was present at the opening of the ‘She-nergy’ exhibition on Saturday, the 8th of March – a group exhibition celebrating women’s work in art and curated by Ladunni Lambo.
Diverse mediums and styles were represented across the works of the five women exhibiting, ranging from geometric-cubist leaning to Oil paintings to Acrylic and Paper Collage creations.
The She-nergy Exhibition in itself highlights the unique viewpoints of these women, exploring various themes of societal considerations, empowerment, and identity through the aforementioned mediums.
With the work of Alexandre Gillet, there is an explosion of color on her canvas, with her figure-focused work in play. Given her predilection to documenting her travels in her work, she presents Lagos (or Nigeria) to us through the women she paints.
There’s a fusion of inspirations at work here, with the exaggerated necks and arms leaning into figurative expressionism, to the geometric backgrounds with various circles and lines forming critical items, to the abstraction forming parts of the figures (cubist), we find women at work and women at rest. There might have been a question or two about these chosen ideas of work on display, though, especially with Glory Sews In the Street.
With Jessica Soares’s work, I found explorations of identity and how we perceive self, especially around beauty standards and how they enforce particular behaviours and doubt about the image put into society. The performance of it.
Her figures bear the full extent of worry and anxieties, as seen in Curious and Curioser, where the figures’ entire focus revolves around the image seen in the mirror held up, eyes pondering the image to be performed. It’s one that I found very compelling, with the purple hues and floral patterns a delight to behold.
The same worries appear in Where to Go From Here and in Is This How The Cookie Crumbles? with her figures in compositions of worry and thought, pondering their current predicaments or their inability to keep up with certain heinous societal demands.
Victoria Oniosun’s work evokes feelings of community and companionship, with layered and deepened textures across the canvas, rendered in oil paint. When populated, her figures are expressed on the canvas in tight proximity, in embrace or leaning towards each other, expressing this tight connection.
These faceless figures give off a certain ask to self-insert and think about your relationships and how they reinforce identities in participation; I posit, as a member of a group contingent on love.
I found Lawrencia Ozioko’s work ruminating on life’s fragility compelling. This figure assumes bent-knee (and bowing) positions, figuring out balance and echoing despair in their assumption of form, also pointing towards just how easy it is to lose this human form. These studies emerge from a trying point in the artist’s life, fighting health conditions, and in craftily texturising the pieces with tissue paper, she hopes to point to just how similarly fragile we are to these strips in the grand scheme of things.
She also posits how this understanding of our own fragility and vulnerability builds a stronger person with the work, Rebirth, where we see a rising figure, braced for ascent.
The anatomical forms she paints also echo the same sentiments, showing the human at their most vulnerable in modern society, with only form to show.
The final artist on show at the She-nergy Exhibition, Chidinma Nwafor, paints the anxiety of waiting and thought in beautiful strokes, with her three-part series, Here I Am, Again (I, II, III)
The details are resplendent, evoking the impressionist style, with the visible brushstrokes and pinpoint depictions of light falling across the canvas, creating amazing portraiture.
It has an amazing effect on the figures, with the composition creating a brooding, uncomfortable air across the canvas. It is brilliant, evocative work.
The She-nergy exhibition was both compelling and necessary, presenting a diverse, yet deeply connected body of work that not only celebrates the artistic brilliance of women but also highlights the lived experiences, struggles, and triumphs of womanhood, especially here in Nigeria. These artists have painted, sculpted, and collaged their realities, challenging beauty norms, redefining identity, embracing community, and confronting fragility.
Beyond its visual appeal, this exhibition stands as a testament to the importance of amplifying women’s voices in the art world.
The She-nergy Exhibition should serve as a call for more spaces, more funding, and more opportunities to support and document women’s stories, not as an afterthought, but as an essential and integral part of artistic discourse. The works on display are a reminder of the power of women-centered narratives and the need to push for continued visibility.
I look forward to seeing not just more of these artists’ works in the future, but also a growing commitment from galleries, collectors, and institutions to invest in and prioritise the stories that women tell through their art, their experiences, and their unwavering creative spirit just like the She-nergy Exhibition has.
