Chika Idu Izu 2025 Oil on canvas 300 x 240 cm (118.1 x 94.5 in)

Curator's note

Izu is the most ambitious single work in the collection by virtue of scale alone. At 300 x 240 cm, this monumental oil painting demands physical engagement from the viewer: it cannot be taken in at a glance but requires movement along its surface. The title references the Igbo concept of water and by extension the life-giving and community-forming properties that water holds in the cultures of the Niger Delta region from which Idu draws much of his iconographic vocabulary. The composition depicts multiple figures in a water environment suffused with dappled forest light, rendered with the gestural freedom that characterises Idu's most ambitious figurative work. Created in 2025, this is among the most recent works in the collection and reflects Idu's continued development toward increasingly large and complex pictorial structures. The work was acquired in June 2025.

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