Ife Kalejaiye

BEYOND RESOLUTION

SOTO Gallery brings three Nigerian voices to 1-54 London

This October, the walls of Somerset House will once again echo with the vibrant pulse of African art, as SOTO Gallery presents 'Beyond Resolution' at the 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair in London. The exhibition unites three Nigerian artists – Ifeoluwa Kalejaiye, Nnena Chukwumereogo, and Lawrence Meju – whose practices span painting, mixed media, and abstraction, united by a shared sensitivity to ambiguity and emotional depth.

Held at Somerset House, the exhibition explores the tension between clarity and ambiguity, asking what it means to encounter something that cannot be easily explained but still leaves a deep emotional mark. Through painting, sculpture, and mixed media, Beyond Resolution reveals the richness of contemporary Nigerian art today – personal yet universal, quiet yet resonant.

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Proceed with Caution (2025) by Ife Kalejaiye

For Ifeoluwa Kalejaiye, whose quietly powerful figurative works capture the tenderness of everyday life. His paintings, rendered in oil, acrylic, and charcoal, are filled with stillness and human presence. In pieces such as Proceed with Caution, Nobilitas Boys, Just the Two of Us, and Before the Sound, Kalejaiye explores adolescence, introspection, and the fragile tension between solitude and connection. His subjects often seem suspended in time, inviting the viewer to pause and inhabit their stillness. “I’m drawn to the moments that don’t announce themselves,” Kalejaiye says. “The pauses, the glances, the quiet spaces where memory and emotion meet.”

Painting by Nnenna Chukwumereogo (2025)

Lawrence Meju (2025)

Alongside Kalejaiye, Nnena Chukwumereogo and Lawrence Meju expand the dialogue through texture, form, and abstraction. Chukwumereogo’s layered mixed-media works explore the fluidity of identity and the emotional landscape of womanhood. By blending textile, paint, and organic material, she constructs tactile narratives that shift between vulnerability and resilience. Meju, meanwhile, channels his background in design into rhythmic compositions that merge geometry and gesture, reflecting on the balance between chaos and control.

The exhibition’s title, Beyond Resolution, feels both poetic and political. It points to the idea that art need not always explain itself; that beauty, tension, and truth can exist in the unresolved. Together, these artists challenge the viewer to experience rather than define.

For SOTO Gallery, this marks a continued commitment to championing Nigerian contemporary art on an international stage. Following acclaimed presentations in Lagos, the gallery’s participation at 1-54 reinforces the vitality and sophistication of Nigeria’s creative voices.

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Beyond Resolution runs at 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair, Somerset House, London, from 16th to the 19th of Oct, 2025.

For more information, visit sotogallery.com or follow @sotogallery on Instagram.

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