A-ARTs: Idowu's spiritual selfhood finds 'The Secret Place' at kó Gallery

'To Become Vessels of Eternity ' (crayon, spray paint, acrylic on canvas, 100x80cm, dated 2025) by Christopher Samuel Idowu.

CHRISTOPHER Samuel Idowu's solo art exhibition titled The Secret Place holds from July 17-August 30, 2025 at kó Gallery, with opening reception at 6-8 PM. 2025

Conte crayon, spray paint and acrylic on canvas 100 x 80 cm

kó stated that Idowu's The Secret Place is rooted in personal reflection and collective memory, exploring the artist's experiential connection to the divine. The gallery noted that his visual language bridges the temporal and the eternal, the solitary and the communal, drawing on spirituality as a way of understanding selfhood, purpose, and belonging.

Idowu’s multidisciplinary practice—encompassing painting, drawing, mixed media, sound, and installation—reflects on themes of memory, transience, and transformation. His works capture moments that feel both earthly and ethereal, rendered in a palette that suggests natural earth tones, faded walls, or weathered patina. These muted tones are punctuated with subtle highlights, such as gold leaf or soft washes, that create a quiet sense of illumination.

Working across materials including acrylic, conte crayon, charcoal, pastel, spray paint, and silkscreen printing, Idowu often combines several media within a single work. This layered approach results in richly tactile surfaces. His frequent use of silkscreen and gestural mark-making reflects an interest in repetition, erosion, and memory—recalling aged prints, faded photographs, or spiritual relics.

His compositions often center on the human figure, portrayed in contemplative or symbolic states that are partially obscured, silhouetted, or veiled. Other works lean into abstraction, suggesting moments of divine encounter. Titles often reference Christian scripture and parables, allowing the works to function as contemporary icons. Many are produced in serial format as diptychs or triptychs, mirroring the structures of spiritual practice. Infused with a devotional sensibility, The Secret Place becomes both sanctuary and testimony—a sacred space where the interior life meets the external world.

Idowu (b. 1995, Lagos, Nigeria) grew up in the costal town of Badagry and was raised on a mission. He studied painting at Yaba College of Technology, graduating in 2021. In 2025, he participated in the Dot Ateliers Residency Program in kó Accra, Ghana, and is featured in the exhibition Some Things Just Don’t Wash Off at Dot Ateliers (July 2025). He was previously an artist-in-residence at La Fourchette de Roze in Grand-Bassam, Côte d’Ivoire (2024), and at The Nomad Artist, an initiative of Adewale Alimi, in Lagos (2020). He was selected for the TILGA Fund Grand Collaboration in 2020 and was a fellow of the Art in Medicine Fellowship in Lagos in 2018.

Idowu has participated in group exhibitions with kó, Rele Gallery, SOTO Gallery, SMO Contemporary, Mydrim Gallery, and Yaba Art Museum. His work has been presented at art fairs including Art X Lagos, +234 Art Fair, and the IDesign Affordable Art Fair. Idowu’s practice also includes community-engaged projects. His first solo exhibition, My Benue Diary: Community Art Project, took place in Tyowanye, Buruku, Benue State, Nigeria in 2023. His work is held in the collection of the Toledo Museum of Art, USA.

kó is an art space based in Lagos, Nigeria, that is dedicated to promoting modern and contemporary art. kó has a dual focus in championing Nigeria’s leading artists from the modern period and celebrating emerging and established contemporary artists across Africa and the Diaspora.

This exhibition is proudly sponsored by Le Connoisseur.

self-reflection inspired olusola's watercolour