Rele Gallery, Los Angeles is delighted to present Good Things Come in Threes, a group exhibition of newly represented artists by the gallery. Featuring works from Jessica Soares, Ayobami Ogungbe and Neec Nonso, the exhibition unveils and ushers in new voices and perspectives from the contemporary Nigerian art scene. The works presented mark an exploratory journey into medium and narrative, across collective celebratory moments and intimate, private lives. Comprising work done in digital and traditional media, the exhibition showcases reimagined forms of image-making and storytelling from an emerging generation of artists.
Jessica Soares presented work continues her reflections on shared trauma, vulnerability and social standards of beauty in her series ‘Chronicles of Esther’. The intimacy between mother and daughter takes center stage here, an intimacy strengthened by the shared experience of dealing with alopecia. Presenting exaggerated forms swathed in folds of fabric, Soares presents scenes of repose and melancholy and ultimately defiance. Her graceful figures convey through their intimate poses, a delicate story shared across generations.
Exploring intricate techniques of weaving and layering, Ayobami Ogungbe produces dynamic compositions that reference design aesthetics and are intimately rooted in the storied realities of his community. His practice of stripping and weaving images and material together lends complexity to his subjects, one that inextricably links body and landscape, figure and ground. From his exploration of the slave trade in ‘Point of No Return’, shared identity and communality in ‘&Co’ as well as social rites and festivities in ‘Kaleta’, Ogungbe visually animates the unfolding histories and present realities of his hometown Badagry.
The steady build-up of composite scenes through layering and repetition also forms a vital component of Neec Nonso’s practice. The works here present recurring, spectral-like bodies arranged around the main subject almost in passive observation. Nonso’s series ‘What Was Dead Was Never Dead’ draws from an ongoing project that explores the belief in reincarnation and the posthumous existence of dead relatives. Showcasing still images and augmented reality, the project juxtaposes life with the afterlife, mining intimate family stories and histories in a bid to exhume memories, popular myths and taboos surrounding death and reincarnation.
