Curated By Ken Nwadiogbu | Opens from 25th April – 10th May 2025 | The Africa Centre | London SE1 0BL
The Africa Centre is pleased to announce From London with Love, an exhibition tracing Promise O’nali’s unrelenting journey from Nigeria to London. The show opens on the 25th of April 2025 at London SE1 0Bl with a new body of work rich in introspective and emotional depth.
‘From London with Love’ is a poignant narrative through explorative portraits, interwoven with O’nali’s music testament to hardship, resilience and perseverance in the face of adversity. In many visual representations, O’nali also expresses societal expectations imposed upon black men. His depictions of subjects with closed eyes profoundly explore his mental health as a black man in London.
O’nali’s recurring motifs of the subject with closed eyes—seen in Like a Bird in a Cage, My Life Was Never Flowery—evoke an intimate dialogue with his mental health. Here, the battle between fear and liberation, between withholding and surrendering, unfolds in quiet tension. O’nali’s juxtapositions of vibrant hues against themes of sorrow do not merely illustrate pain but weave hope in every brushstroke.
With telling music of hip hop and soul rhythms, untitled 78 to Shoreditch, Flowers Fall and Vent present O’nali’s psychological and emotional state. This lyrical concept of surviving in the fast past and ever-shifting city, his art becomes personal confrontations and pilgrimage, an earnest quest for meaning. As he reveals these burdens, we are confronted with his fragile masculinity and identity. Additionally, in this fluidity of belonging and longing, displacement and redefinition of identity, the exhibition invites us to confront our own. His tales of confessions do not seek mere sympathy; they offer refuge, a sanctuary of shared experience and unspoken understanding.
Promise O’nali was born in 1984 in Rivers State, Nigeria, and studied painting at the University of Nigeria Nsukka. His first solo show, ‘Falling into Dream’, was held at The Kopper Project in London, curated by Ifedolapo Onikoyi. He participated in a collaborative exhibition with Brunei Gallery Contemporary, ‘Forward to the Past: Re-engaging Uli in New Experiments’. He has showcased his works in other group shows in Nigeria.
Contact details:
For Artwork Enquiries, please contact | Promise O’nali | promiseonali@gmail.com London, UK
