Shows to See in Lagos This June
- Jun 1
- 4 min read
Updated: Jun 2
Lagos galleries are putting together a strong programme this June. From new solo presentations to duo and group shows, there is a range of work on view across Ikoyi worth making time for. Here is what is currently open and opening this month.
kó | Condition Make Crayfish Bend — Ngozi-Omeje Ezema
36 Cameron Road, Ikoyi | 6 June – 22 August 2026
Ngozi-Omeje Ezema's second solo exhibition at kó presents sculptural installations composed of hundreds of suspended terracotta fragments that form amorphous, vessel-like structures. Ezema's practice is rooted in a reconsideration of pottery traditions, transforming the vessel from a domestic and utilitarian object into a site that holds memory, embodiment, and cultural meaning. Drawing on the forms of vessels, leaves, and the material presence of earth, the work invites reflection on what surfaces and containers carry beyond their physical function. On view until 22 August.
Adegbola Gallery x Fresco Gallery | Asidere / Duke — Duke Asidere
1619 Danmole Street, Victoria Island | 5 June – 18 July 2026
A collaboration between Adegbola Gallery and Fresco Gallery, this major solo exhibition surveys more than four decades of practice by Nigerian painter Duke Asidere (b. 1961, Lagos). Trained at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Asidere belongs to a generation of artists for whom technical rigour is central. The exhibition is structured around the productive tension in his work between two modes: the instinctive painter driven by raw emotion and memory, and the disciplined artist shaped by the demands of art school. Colour is the through-line — Asidere has described it as "the complete document of my thoughts" — operating throughout the works less as formal device than as a record of mood, pressure, and reflection. The works move across oil, palette knife, graphite, watercolour, acrylic, ink, and mixed media, with drawing at the core of everything. Fragments of everyday Nigerian life — bank cards, newspaper clippings, medical prescriptions — enter the works as quiet anchors to the realities from which the paintings emerge.
DADA Gallery | Between Mark and Matter
49 Norman Williams Street, Ikoyi | Now open
Between Mark and Matter brings together three painters — Inès Di Folco Jemni, Fidelis Joseph, and Ngimbi Bakambana Luve — whose practices sit at the intersection of abstraction and figuration. Across their work, painting is animated by tonal vibrancy and shifts in legibility: figures move into sign, objects carry a weight beyond their form, and repeated marks function as chromatic interruptions that alter how surrounding forms are read. The exhibition is the latest show at DADA's permanent Lagos space, which opened in November 2025.
SOTO Gallery | What the Surface Refuses to Hide: Narratives in Sgraffito
10 Omo Osagie Street, Ikoyi | 13 June – 11 July 2026
Opening reception: 13 June, 12pm | Artist talk: 4pm
SOTO Gallery presents a duo exhibition featuring Toju Clarke and Adeoti Azeez Afeez, centred on the technique of sgraffito — a process of scratching, carving, and incising into layered surfaces. Clarke works through painted layers to explore memory as a terrain shaped by lived experience, aspiration, and psychological endurance. Azeez Afeez works in clay, drawing from ancestry, family lineage, and Yoruba visual histories to transform ceramic surfaces into records of cultural memory. The exhibition opens 13 June with a reception at 12pm and an artist talk at 4pm, and runs until 11 July.
Rele Gallery | Woven and Built: In Tandem — Marcellina Oseghale Akpojotor & Patrick Akpojotor
32 Thompson Avenue, Ikoyi | 9 May – 20 June 2026
This two-person exhibition features the work of Marcellina Oseghale Akpojotor and Patrick Akpojotor, marking ten years of shared life and creative practice. The show presents work that reflects on what it means to build an artistic identity in relation to another person — the points of convergence and divergence that only become legible over time. The exhibition closes 20 June.
Thought Pyramid Art Centre x TAAG Gallery | Here and Now: Becoming, Identity, Memory, and Environment
96 Norman Williams Street, Ikoyi | 13 – 30 June 2026
Opening reception: 13 June, 4pm
A collaboration between Thought Pyramid Art Centre and TAAG Gallery, curated by Rodney Asikhia and Jeff Ajueshi. The group exhibition brings together 20 emerging contemporary artists — including Williams Merenini, Olatide Amusa, Frank Ndubuisi, Don Okuchukwu, Bella Mfon, Tarikoro Tamunofiri Henrietta, Austin George Dorgu, Mark Duke, Ella Ojadi, Nelson Etok, Temitope Victoria Ogunwale, Moses Bamba, Esinulo Chiamaka Praise, Wasiu Sunday Hassan, Shina Ernest Odofin, David Okoi, Enoch Oyewole, Similoluwa Ilori, Kingsley Oghenekaro Omodigono, and Adabieke Chisom Nichodemus — working in painting and mixed media. The exhibition explores personal transformation, cultural identity, memory, and the environments that shape lived experience. Open daily 10am – 6pm.
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