LIGHT KNOWS THE WAY Exhibition of Paintings by Francis Mbella

Kokopelli Gallery is honoured to announce ‘Light Knows the Way’, the Lagos debut of Paris-based painter Francis Mbella, one of contemporary painting’s most singular voices, and the inventor of a technique that has quietly transformed what a painted surface can do.

Seventeen works, spanning three decades of practice, will be presented across Kokopelli’s Ikoyi space from 22 March through 19 April 2026. A private opening for collectors and invited guests took place on the evening of Saturday, 21 March.

THE ARTIST

Born in 1961 into a household where artistry was the native language, his father a sculptor and his mother a fashion designer. Francis Mbella arrived at painting already fluent in form. He trained at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, graduating in 1987, and in the years that followed developed what would become his defining contribution to the medium: the Tapioca Relief technique.

By pressing cassava flour into oil or acrylic paint, layer by layer, Mbella transforms the canvas into something that exists between painting and sculpture, a surface that shifts with the light, changes through the day, and possesses a physical presence no photographic reproduction can fully convey. The Tapioca Reliefs do not decorate a surface but build one.

Over four decades, his work has been presented in more than 200 exhibitions across five continents, the KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin, Galeria Choque Cultural in São Paulo, the Diego Rivera Gallery in San Francisco, the SMAC Gallery in Cape Town, and permanent exhibition at Les Moulins de Coupray in France, among many others. His canvases

hang in major private collections internationally and have been recognised by figures including two former Presidents of France, the late Jacques Chirac and François Hollande, French actress Catherine Deneuve, international footballer Samuel Eto’o, the Director-General of the United Nations in Geneva, and His Holiness Pope Francis, who in 2015 distinguished Mbella as a Humanist Professor for his cultural contribution.

THE EXHIBITION

Light Knows the Way takes its title from the quality of illumination that moves through every canvas in this selection, not light as decoration, but light as direction. As the exhibition’s co-curator, Princess Ifedolapo Onikoyi of Artfrofest, Paris, observes: in these works, light rises from within the arch, from the pale centre of the sky, from the small flame in a figure’s hand. It is

a light of orientation, a light that already knows where it is going.

Princess Onikoyi presents the work around three organising themes, Territories, Thresholds, and Presence; the exhibition traces the full range of Mbella’s practice across oil and tapioca works on hardboard and large-format prints. Works span from 1992 to 2024, offering Lagos audiences a rare survey of a painter at the height of his powers.

The curatorial reading locates Mbella’s practice within the deeper history of the cassava diaspora and the sacred geography of Central and West Africa. Cassava crossed the Atlantic from South America in the sixteenth century, carried on colonial trade routes, and became so thoroughly absorbed into daily life across the continent that its foreign origin became invisible —

it became garri, it became fufu, it became ancestral. When Mbella presses tapioca into paint, he builds with that history: each layer an act of preservation, each surface an archive.

Among the seventeen works are paintings of intimate personal significance, including two large-format prints from 2006 depicting the artist’s daughters, Joy and Grace Mbella, who today carry his legacy forward as founders of TPC Art House, Paris. These works have rarely been shown publicly; their inclusion in the Lagos presentation is itself an occasion.WHY LAGOS, WHY NOW

This is Francis Mbella’s debut exhibition in Nigeria, and its timing is not incidental. Lagos has emerged as one of the most important nodes in the international contemporary art conversation, a city that, as Kokopelli’s founder Dare Herald notes,

“knows how to hold many histories at once.

” These paintings do too.

The decision to bring Light Knows the Way to Lagos reflects both the universal ambition of Mbella’s practice and the specific resonance his materials carry on this continent. The cassava in his paint is not a foreign curiosity here. It is a shared inheritance. There is an encounter waiting in these works for the Lagos viewer that is available nowhere else in the world.

A NOTE FOR COLLECTORS

Every work in Light Knows the Way is unique. Each Tapioca Relief surface was built by hand, layer by layer, and cannot be identically reproduced; this is the nature of living material. The works are available for acquisition through Kokopelli Gallery for the duration of the exhibition.

Collectors wishing to attend the private opening on Saturday, 21 March, or to arrange a private viewing, are invited to contact the gallery directly.

SELECTED TESTIMONIALS

“Francis Mbella captivates with his poetic vision of the world, where harmony, emotion and vibrant colours come together in perfect balance.“

— François Hollande, Former President of France

“The painting of Francis Mbella dazzles us by its moving and poetic transposition of reality. One remains seized above all by the beauty, the harmony, and the colours.“

— Catherine Deneuve, French Actress

“Francis Mbella’s art is a beautiful blend of joy, peace and human achievement. It is a celebration of the spirit, brought to life through colour and form.“

— Samuel Eto’o, International Footballer

ABOUT KOKOPELLI GALLERY

Kokopelli Gallery, Ikoyi, Lagos, was founded on the belief that art is, before anything else, a form of storytelling. The gallery presents work that carries genuine depth, rewards sustained attention, and asks something of the people who stand before it. Light Knows the Way is presented in partnership with TPC Art House, Paris.

EXHIBITION DETAILS

Light Knows the Way · Paintings by Francis Mbella

Private Opening: Saturday, 21 March 2026 · Kokopelli Gallery, Ademola Street, Ikoyi, Lagos

Public Exhibition: 22 March – 19 April 2026

For more info https://kokopelliafrica.com/home