Gardens for the Soul: Nengi Omuku at Pippy Houldsworth Gallery

One Particular Man (2026)

Dream Logic (2026)

It’s not every day that an artist paints on art. In Nengi Omuku’s latest show, her canvas is sanyan, a precious handwoven textile used by the Yoruba people in West Africa. Traditionally worn for special occasions and ceremonies, sanyan is painstakingly crafted and long-lasting, and Omuku paints its surface in quick, pointillist brushstrokes. Her otherworldly paintings are crowded with people who walk through blurred greenery and sun-tinged clouds or seem to ascend into a realm beyond, their bodies disappearing into panoramas of colour.

It’s not every day that an artist paints on art.

The natural world and our place in it has been an enduring focus for Omuku, who trained under her mother as a horticulturist and florist. She grew up in Lagos, before moving to the UK as a teenager, studying at the Slade, and then returning to Nigeria. She now lives between Lagos and London.

This relationship to international city life informs her work’s grappling with green spaces that exist precariously in ever-expanding urban worlds. In one, a brutalist apartment building looms over a young girl walking through criss-crossing trees. In another, faceless people queue for fuel amongst foliage.

A Quiet Nation (2026)

This show is suffused by the dreaming of its title

Think of gardens and you may think of paradise, places of solace, healing, growth. But since the days of Eden, these paradises has also been shaped by contradictions. They’re full of abundance, yet are equally linked to ownership and exclusion: who cultivates them, who gets to enjoy them, who is pushed out.

Is it rain or pollution?

But this show is suffused by the dreaming of its title and, while acknowledging the political weight of this subject, Omuku sustains an uplifting sense of hope and possibility throughout. She reminds us that public gardens are a necessity, because creating them means creating sanctuaries where we can imagine, rest, connect – and dream.

What Might Grow Here (2026)

In the final painting, a man walks to his car, behind which billows an ambiguous cloud; is it rain or pollution? Yet in the background people stand, or float, gazing and pointing out to the horizon, towards different dreams, different possibilities, different futures.

All images are courtesy the artist and Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London. © Nengi Omuku 2026. Photography by Todd-White Art Photography.

VISITING INFO:

GALLERY NAME: Pippy Houldsworth Gallery

ADDRESS: 6 Heddon St, W1B 4BT

DATES: 1 - 30 May 2026