I’m Just a Boy revisits the formative years of Black and African masculinity. The show brings together ten contemporary African artists whose works delve into the complexities of growing up male in societies that prioritize toughness over tenderness, performance over presence.
Through painting, photography, and mixed media, each artist offers a deeply personal yet collectively resonant narrative, exploring themes of vulnerability, identity, resistance, and care.
Artists' Reflections:
• Ebenezer Akinola captures the quiet introspection and ambition of his subjects, stating, “In my portraits, I seek to preserve the dignity and emotional complexity of Black men. With each brushstroke, I trace not just features but memories—aspirations, hesitations, inherited silence. The boy is always there, just beneath the surface, holding everything together.”
• Emeka Udemba disrupts linear identity with layers and fragmentation, explaining, “My mixed media work deconstructs identity through layers—of paint, of paper, of meaning. For me, the ‘boy’ is not a fixed image, but a space of transformation. A zone where past and future collide. A body in process, resisting the finality of definition.”
• Ebuka Michael and Remy Samuz depict closeness and kinship—bodies in dialogue, not dominance. Michael reflects, “Brotherhood is the language I speak through images. My work explores how touch, proximity, and vulnerability between boys and men can challenge societal scripts. In a world that often silences our softness, my art insists on it.” Samuz adds, “I am fascinated by the everyday gestures of masculinity—those unguarded moments when the boy reappears. A gaze. A lean. A hesitation. My practice is about slowing time down enough to notice them.”
• Boris Anje (Anjel) plays with aesthetics of masculinity and consumerism, stating, “Fashion is my entry point, but identity is the real subject. The boys I paint wear power, desire, and conflict. They reflect back society’s obsession with image—but they also interrupt it. They ask: Who am I beneath the brand?”
• Opeyemi Matthew Olukotun and Oliver Okolo turn inward, crafting subtle expressions of longing, becoming, and youth. Olukotun shares, “There’s a quiet tension in my portraits. I focus on solitude, on the spaces between strength and softness. The boy appears not as a future man, but as a present self—complete in his uncertainty. This is my rebellion.” Okolo observes, “The inner world of boys—especially African boys—remains largely unseen. My paintings are portals into that world. They carry emotional texture, built through color and figuration, revealing not toughness, but layers of yearning and becoming.”
• Andrés Montalván employs this sculpture Horizonte » as a metaphor for the dynamic and fragile balance in human relationships, addressing themes of race and society. The juxtaposed heads symbolize the coexistence of racial, cultural, or social differences, held in constant tension and movement. The semi-circular element alludes to the horizon as a space of encounter or separation, implying that balance is not static but must be continually negotiated and constructed. The work invites reflection on the challenges of equality and coexistence in a world where imbalances—both historical and current—persist. Simultaneously, it highlights the interdependence between opposites, emphasizing that equilibrium depends on the presence and weight of both sides.
• Okoye Chukwuemeka John and Moses Zibor interrogate memory, presence, and the painted form as both archive and prophecy. John notes, “I work with color and abstraction to give shape to psychological states. The figures I paint are not entirely whole—they’re stretching, dissolving, reassembling. For me, this is what it means to ‘become a man’ in today’s world: unstable, dynamic, fragile.” Zibor reflects, “I revisit memory as a means of healing. The boy in my work is not just a child, but a question—what did he see, what did he lose, what does he carry? I paint to speak to him. To hold him. To forgive him.”
Exhibition Overview:
I’m Just a Boy dares us to see the boy within the man. To witness softness without shame. To hold space for a masculinity that breathes. This exhibition explores the multifaceted experience of African masculinity by revisiting its earliest, rawest form: the boy. Through the lenses of ten contemporary African artists, the exhibition captures an emotional landscape rarely afforded to Black male subjects—tenderness, uncertainty, curiosity, vulnerability, and quiet rebellion.
This is not a retreat from manhood, but a re-rooting. Each work becomes a window into how masculinity is inherited, performed, resisted, and remade. The boy in these works is not naïve—he is watching, absorbing, becoming. I’m Just a Boy is not about nostalgia. It’s about reclamation.
It honors the full emotional range of Black and African masculinity at a time when vulnerability is an act of resistance. In every gaze, gesture, and painted figure, these artists offer us a radical proposition: The boy never disappeared. He was simply waiting to be seen.
