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KEMI ONABULÉ

False Spring

Night Gallery is pleased to announce False Spring, an exhibition of new paintings by Kemi Onabulé. This is the artist’s debut solo exhibition in the United States and follows her participation in the group show Shrubs, 2022.

Installation view of Kemi Onabulé's "False Spring”

Kemi Onabulé, False Spring, installation view, 2024

A painting of a figure standing by reflective water surrounded by green rolling hills, stones and trees.

Kemi Onabulé, Show Me Your Future, I'll Show You My Past, 2024

Detail of "Show Me Your Future, I'll Show You My Past", 2024

Kemi Onabulé, Show Me Your Future, I'll Show You My Past, detail, 2024

Throughout her practice, Onabulé is known for her humanoid figures who interact with her vivid, post-apocalyptic landscapes. While broadening her world-making environments, Onabulé takes direct reference from her lived experience in painting bodies in shades of brown as she undermines Western landscape tropes. Where predecessors flattened and exoticized the “Other,” and created endless sightlines to suggest unbounded colonial domination, Onabulé creates contained scenes that reflect the deep, psychic spaces of her figures.

Installation view of Kemi Onabulé's "False Spring”

Kemi Onabulé, False Spring, installation view, 2024

A painting of a barren tree against a smoldering mountainous background.

Kemi Onabulé, False Spring, 2024

Onabulé’s title derives from a line in Ernest Hemingway’s 1964 memoir A Moveable Feast: “When spring came, even the false spring, there were no problems except where to be happiest.” This “false spring,” and the winter weather that follows, mirrors the ups and downs of the writer’s life in interwar Paris. Onabulé’s “false spring” similarly references a summer that’s come too early, perhaps due to the climate crisis; our increasingly unstable seasons have warped our sense of promised time. The artist views such ecological vicissitude through the prism of the body: She considers how it responds to shifting landscapes—and may respond to the lush, regenerative climates that arise after the world we know disappears.

Installation view of Kemi Onabulé's "False Spring”

Kemi Onabulé, False Spring, installation view, 2024

Onabulé’s figures wade or gaze into eddying waters as volumes of green streaks and drips suggest the dynamic lands, grasses, and tropical settings around them. Lost Love and The Wish to Be Forgiven (both 2024) feature pairs of figures who reveal or conceal themselves in bright or twilit clearings. In the title painting, False Spring (2024), no figure appears. Instead, bare tree limbs arc across a desolate landscape that evokes the wreckage of California forest fires. In the distance, pastel waters reflect a luminous moon. Throughout these paintings, the artist considers what it means to have a witness, whether human or celestial.

Installation view of Kemi Onabulé's "False Spring”

Kemi Onabulé, False Spring, installation view, 2024

A painting of a figure seated at the base of a sprawling barren tree with a full moon peering over the top of a dark mountain in the background.

Kemi Onabulé, Limbes, 2024

Detail of "Limbes", 2024

Kemi Onabulé, Limbes, detail, 2024

Disparate art histories and mythologies inform these scenes. Onabulé refutes Paul Gaugin’s paternalistic visions of Tahiti while embracing the surreal simplicities of Noah Davis. Her dual heritage also shapes the complex relationship between her figures and their surroundings.

A painting of two figures gathered around a small body of water surrounded by rolling green hills, green trees and pink clouds above.

Kemi Onabulé, The Wish To Be Forgiven, 2024

Kemi Onabulé, False Spring, installation view, 2024

Kemi Onabulé, False Spring, installation view, 2024

Nigerian tradition centers and anthropomorphizes nature; forests have eyes and the land has a consciousness of its own. Greek tradition, on the other hand, focuses on humans while blurring the boundaries of form: Gods turn themselves into animals, while Narcissus, so seduced by his own aquatic reflection that he falls into a pool, ultimately sprouts into a flower.

A painting of a female figure leaning against a tree with a large reflective body of water in the background.

Kemi Onabulé, Shown in Silhouette, 2024

Installation view of Kemi Onabulé's "False Spring”

Kemi Onabulé, False Spring, installation view, 2024

Through such contrivance, invention, and engagement with the fraught past, Onabulé discovers new forms and ways of working that are both generative and true. Trees fall and darkness descends around her figures. A green, new world springs up around them. No matter the setting, they remain sturdy and strong.

Installation view of Kemi Onabulé's "False Spring”

Kemi Onabulé, False Spring, installation view, 2024

A painting of a female figure wading in a body of water surrounded by rocks and tall grass.

Kemi Onabulé, Shallow River, 2024

A painting of a tree with a bright pink trunk and green leaves with a pink and purple body of water in the background.

Kemi Onabulé, Unititled Landscape, 2024

Kemi Onabulé (b. 1995, London, United Kingdom) has had solo exhibitions at Sim Smith, London, United Kingdom. This is Onabulé’s first solo exhibition in the US. She has participated in group exhibitions at Capsule, Venice, Italy; Night Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; Bode Projects, Berlin, Germany; and numerous galleries in the United Kingdom. In 2021, she was shortlisted for the prestigious Jackson's Painting Prize. The artist lives and works in London and is represented by Sim Smith.

A painting of a figure standing by reflective water surrounded by green rolling hills, stones and trees.

Kemi Onabulé

Show Me Your Future, I'll Show You My Past, 2024

oil on canvas

66 7/8 x 51 1/8 in (170 x 130 cm)

A painting of a barren tree against a smoldering mountainous background.

Kemi Onabulé

False Spring, 2024

oil on canvas

66 7/8 x 51 1/8 in (170 x 130 cm)

A painting of a figure seated at the base of a sprawling barren tree with a full moon peering over the top of a dark mountain in the background.

Kemi Onabulé

Limbes, 2024

oil on canvas

66 7/8 x 51 1/8 in (170 x 130 cm)

Inquire
A painting of two figures gathered around a small body of water surrounded by rolling green hills, green trees and pink clouds above.

Kemi Onabulé

The Wish To Be Forgiven, 2024

oil on canvas

66 7/8 x 51 1/8 in (170 x 130 cm)

Inquire
A painting of a female figure leaning against a tree with a large reflective body of water in the background.

Kemi Onabulé

Shown in Silhouette, 2024

oil on canvas

70 7/8 x 59 in (180 x 150 cm)

Inquire
A painting of a female figure wading in a body of water surrounded by rocks and tall grass.

Kemi Onabulé

Shallow River, 2024

oil on canvas

66 7/8 x 51 1/8 in (170 x 130 cm)

Inquire
A painting of a tree with a bright pink trunk and green leaves with a pink and purple body of water in the background.

Kemi Onabulé

Unititled Landscape, 2024

oil on canvas

16 1/8 x 14 1/8 in (41 x 36 cm)

A painting of two figures by the shore of a reflective body of water with palm trees swaying beneath an orange sun.

Kemi Onabulé

Lost Love, 2024

oil on canvas

70 7/8 x 59 in (180 x 150 cm)

Inquire
A painting of a figure standing by reflective water surrounded by green rolling hills, stones and trees.

Kemi Onabulé

Show Me Your Future, I'll Show You My Past, 2024

oil on canvas

66 7/8 x 51 1/8 in (170 x 130 cm)

A painting of a barren tree against a smoldering mountainous background.

Kemi Onabulé

False Spring, 2024

oil on canvas

66 7/8 x 51 1/8 in (170 x 130 cm)

A painting of a figure seated at the base of a sprawling barren tree with a full moon peering over the top of a dark mountain in the background.

Kemi Onabulé

Limbes, 2024

oil on canvas

66 7/8 x 51 1/8 in (170 x 130 cm)

A painting of two figures gathered around a small body of water surrounded by rolling green hills, green trees and pink clouds above.

Kemi Onabulé

The Wish To Be Forgiven, 2024

oil on canvas

66 7/8 x 51 1/8 in (170 x 130 cm)

A painting of a female figure leaning against a tree with a large reflective body of water in the background.

Kemi Onabulé

Shown in Silhouette, 2024

oil on canvas

70 7/8 x 59 in (180 x 150 cm)

A painting of a female figure wading in a body of water surrounded by rocks and tall grass.

Kemi Onabulé

Shallow River, 2024

oil on canvas

66 7/8 x 51 1/8 in (170 x 130 cm)

A painting of a tree with a bright pink trunk and green leaves with a pink and purple body of water in the background.

Kemi Onabulé

Unititled Landscape, 2024

oil on canvas

16 1/8 x 14 1/8 in (41 x 36 cm)

A painting of two figures by the shore of a reflective body of water with palm trees swaying beneath an orange sun.

Kemi Onabulé

Lost Love, 2024

oil on canvas

70 7/8 x 59 in (180 x 150 cm)