For the Badagry-based artist, Francis Agemo, it is imperative to reflect on one’s journey with ancestors and unseen forces that shape his life, community and ancestors.

Addressing the media at Alexis Galleries, Lagos, on his solo show titled, Omemitonlee, he disclosed the word in Egun language, means ancestors and living legends, families and individual’s integral at the core of one’s existence for good and bad times.

To Agemo, “this will be my major solo here in Lagos. I’m happy to show my works because I’m a painter from beginning. Around 2017, Madam Patty, founder of Alexis Galleries, said: ‘You can actually do wood, like how you have been painting. You can merge painting with wood.’ So, she added me to the artists then in residency that are doing wood panels. And so since then I’ve been working with them. They showed me some steps. I’m happy to show my solo woodworks and sculptures for the very first time here at Alexis Galleries.”

Curated by Uche Obasi of Alexis Galleries, Omemitonlee draws intimately from Agemo’s long standing inspiration and influences from his inherited traditions, beliefs, rituals and spiritual indulgence from his grandfather, a woodcarver and devout worshipper of gu and fon deities and other gods: Thron, Atinga and Towothun.

With about 25 pieces, including large sculptures, totems, wood panels, and some paintings, his works are marked by exaggerated heads and features of past dead patriarchs who have returned as ibeji, totems, and figurine statuettes, with jarring contours and carved out lines, engraved mystical symbols and motifs.

He added, “since February precisely, I’ve been working towards this show,” Agemo revealed that one of his sculptural work tilted, Mi Nape To Olọn, revolves around the artist’s own life through personal reflection on the possibility of reconnection and reunion in the afterlife, and meditation on his encounters with communal love, life and death, revisiting the impact, traditions and legacies of influential departed elders in his kindred.

Speaking further, Agemo added, “I believe there is life after death. It all depends on how we perceive it, on how you are connected with the spirits of your ancestors. My grandparents led me to know that we always have things that we call upon, and have conversation with, and at the same time, they answer to our prayers.”

He uses materials such as acrylics, car paint, serigraphy, an engraved or marked symbols on his works. The exhibition opened on October 18, and ended October 30, 2025.