An all-female group exhibition themed ‘Daughters With Wings’, is currently showing at the 202 Gallery, Ikoyi Lagos.

The impressive exhibition is curated by celebrated Nigerian poet and cultural thinker Ijeoma Umebinyuo.

‘Daughters With Wings’ which opened on May 10, 2025, marked Umebinyuo’s curatorial debut. The show brought together Adaoma Nnabeze, Chinaza Nkemka, Titilola Fagbemi, Hannatu Ageni-Yusuf, Victoria Makinde, Ashiata Shaibu and Goodness Nnabeze; seven Nigerian female artists living and working in Nigeria.

Rooted in Umebinyuo’s lifelong advocacy and intellectual practice, Daughters With Wings continues the dialogue she began in her widely acclaimed TEDx talk, ‘Dismantling the Culture of Silence’, and her seminal poetry collection, ‘Questions for Ada’.

Known for her contributions to womanist literature and praised by National Now as an important voice in global feminist discourse, Umebinyuo now turns to visual art as a medium of resistance and reflection.

Daughters With Wings, which runs until July 26, 2025, centres on the radical act of bearing witness through art. In a landscape where the creative voices of West African women are often marginalized or overlooked, Daughters With Wings celebrates their work with the visibility and reverence it deserves. Through painting, drawings, and mixed media installations, the featured artists navigate personal and collective histories, confronting systems of patriarchy while asserting agency and voice.

How are women in Nigeria resisting through their art? How is their work being supported, seen, and sustained? What does it mean to be a daughter—of lineage, of culture, of resistance—and how does that shape creative expression today, are some of the vital questions the exhibition seeks to address.

Ashiata Shaibu Salami’s ‘What it carries’ (Acrylic and paper collage on canvas); Titilola Fagbem’s ‘In the midst of it all’ (Oil and acrylic on canvas); together with every other work on display, contributes to the dismantling of silence, building a chorus that is both intimate and global in its resonance.

Obviously, works by Hannatu Ageni-Yusuf are a huge stand-up for African women. Styles and textures of African women’s natural hair are depicted in art pieces like ‘We Did Not Forget Purity’ (Acrylic on Canvas).

At the core of the works is the need for African women to be confident and proud of their endowments.

According to the artist who is well-travelled, the inspiration to promote African beauty came from her experiences while studying at different universities in the UK. While there, she was thrilled about how foreigners were excited about her African hair texture and type; wishing they had such hair texture.

With about five works on the subject of swimming, Chinaza Nkemka, a history graduate of Imo State University, lets out her fears about swimming and how she overcame it. The young artist, through her works, who are inspired by her personal experience, challenges others to step out into a new world of boldness.

Some of her paintings by the poolside like ‘In the Hurricane of Doubts’ tell about self-actualisation while experiencing vulnerability. The piece also symbolises a period she was enveloped with fear coupled with the challenges that come with living in it.

From a family with rare talents, 202 Gallery featured two sisters; Adaoma Nnabeze and Goodness Nnabeze, without knowing they were siblings initially. The stunning works from the young sisters, according to the curator, were too good to be left out. The sisters are both Fine Art graduates of the University of Nigeria Nsukka. Observing works with lines and listening to Goodness, who is the younger sister as well as the youngest artist at the exhibition, tells you the stuff she is made of. Her elder sister, Adaoma couldn’t make it to the preview event, but her works and those of her sister’s are proof of great talents. More so, Goodness’ works on lines with mastery of the Uli concept at Nsukka, made her works stand out. On a first observation, her pieces, such as ‘Humans are Blue’, appear like abstract works, but a closer look brings out figures and messages embedded in them.

Interestingly, while Goodness presents paintings that celebrate the values of African women wrappers, particularly in the Eastern part of Nigeria, Adaoma creates installations using threads as a metaphor for the thought process and its impact on humans.

According to Goodness, her works bring out “the beauty of lines, the freedom of lines. The lines exploration is basically to send out the message of humans being energies.”

About the all-female exhibition, 202 Gallery by Artsplit’s Manager, Majid Biggar, expressed how excited he was about hosting the young artists, noting the importance of offering upcoming talented artists a space to showcase their talents. He further invited collectors and enthusiasts to visit the exhibition so as to experience the dynamic celebration of our identity as Africans and the worth of Nigerian women artists.