AFFINITY GALLERY IS PLEASED TO PRESENT COSMIC INHERITANCE, FEATURING NEW WORKS BY FIVE CONTEMPORARY AFRICAN ARTISTS
Affinity Gallery is pleased to present Cosmic Inheritance, a group exhibition that opens on Sunday, June 21 at 2 PM. The exhibition brings together the practices of Tejumola Adenuga, Nola Ayoola, Mahari Chabwera, Reggie Khumalo, and Pelumi Ponmile, five artists whose works examine the ways identity, memory, spirituality, and cultural knowledge are carried across generations, geographies, and lived experience.
Through painting, beadwork, portraiture, weaving, and textile collage, the artists consider inheritance not as a fixed lineage, but as a living and evolving constellation of stories, gestures, materials, and ways of being.
At its core, Cosmic Inheritance considers what we carry beyond the tangible. The exhibition proposes inheritance as a living continuum; an accumulation of ancestral memory, cultural knowledge, spiritual belief, and collective experience that extends across generations and geographies. These inheritances are not solely passed down through bloodlines or recorded histories; they reside in materials, rituals, gestures, acts of making, and the unseen forces that bind us to one another.
About the Artists
Nola Ayoola (b.1992) is a Lagos and New York-based interdisciplinary artist whose practice explores memory, identity, and lived experience through painting, portraiture, sculpture, and immersive environments. She holds degrees from the University of Bristol and Parsons School of Design. Drawing on Yoruba symbolism, personal narratives, and tactile processes including weaving, collage, hand printing, and painting, she creates layered works that translate embodied memory and psychological states into form, examining themes of womanhood, belonging, transformation, and displacement. Ayoola has exhibited internationally at the Investec Cape Town Art Fair, Untitled Art Fair Miami, Latitudes Art Fair, The 1897 Gallery, and Affinity Gallery, among others, and her work has been featured in public installations at the World Trade Center, New York. Her work is held in significant private collections, including The Dean Collection.
Mahari Chabwera (b.1995) is a visual artist whose tapestry paintings explore meditation, energy, and self-mythologization through light-responsive materials such as glass seed beads, tempered glass, fabric, and shells. She holds a BFA in Painting & Printmaking from Virginia Commonwealth University and has participated in residencies at the Vermont Studio Center, 1708 Gallery, and The McColl Center. Her work has been exhibited at institutions including Virginia Museum of History & Culture and Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art. It is held in the permanent collections of The Reginald F. Lewis Museum and the University of Virginia. Chabwera is the recipient of awards from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, The Peale Museum, the Maryland State Arts Council, and Art Matters, and will begin her MFA in Painting at Cranbrook Academy of Art this fall.
Tejumola Adenuga (b. 1995) is a Nigerian artist and designer living and working between Lagos and London. His practice explores memory, reduction, and storytelling through minimalist figurative works that distill found images into evocative compositions, balancing presence and absence. Adenuga has presented solo exhibitions, including Future Past at Art Twenty One (2024), Lamp Atelier with Soho House (2021), and Blind Daydream at Oallery Amsterdam (2019), and has participated in exhibitions at Somerset House (2023) and the Design Museum (2026). Alongside his artistic practice, he has collaborated with international brands and institutions, including Netflix, Adidas, Birkenstock, The New York Times, The New Yorker, Soho House, and the British Fashion Council. He holds a BA in Design from Ravensbourne University, London.
Pelumi Ponmile (b. 1993) is a Nigerian visual artist whose multidisciplinary practice explores the intersections of identity, memory, cultural heritage, and materiality. He holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Fine and Applied Arts from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife. Working with reclaimed textiles, particularly aso òkè and aso òfì, he creates richly layered compositions that examine how histories, values, and narratives are embedded in everyday materials. His work engages themes of resilience, renewal, and collective memory, transforming discarded fabrics into powerful reflections on contemporary African experience. Through a practice that bridges tradition and innovation, Ponmile contributes to ongoing conversations around sustainability, cultural preservation, and the evolving language of portraiture. His work has been exhibited extensively across Nigeria, including at the +234 Art Fair, Mydrim Gallery, MUSON Centre, Fobally Art Gallery, and the J. Randle Centre, establishing him as a distinctive voice within a new generation of artists reimagining the possibilities of portraiture through material innovation.
Reggie Khumalo (b. 1987) is a self-taught South African artist whose practice is rooted in themes of identity, belonging, empowerment, and the spirit of Ubuntu. Informed by years of travel across the African continent, including a four-year motorbike journey from Cape Town to Cairo. His paintings celebrate the resilience, dignity, and humanity of his subjects through bold colour and expressive figuration. Khumalo has exhibited extensively across Africa, Europe, and the United States, with recent presentations at the 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair in New York (2024, 2025), London (2024, 2026), and Marrakech (2024, 2026), AKAA Art Fair, Paris (2024), and solo exhibitions at Filafrique Gallery, Geneva (2024), Chilli Art Projects, London (2023), Satellites of Art, Berlin (2021), and mmArtHouse, Johannesburg (2020–2021). His work is held in significant private collections internationally.
For interviews, images, and comment, please contact: Motunrayo Muritala, manager@galleryaffinity.com
Exhibition Opening Hours:
Tuesday – Saturday, 11 am – 6 pm
Sundays are by appointment only.
Affinity Gallery; Unit 2, 1-7 Muri Okunola Street, Victoria Island, Lagos, Nigeria.
Learn more about Affinity Gallery via their website www.galleryaffinity.com
