Nike Art Gallery (Nike Art Foundation Lagos) Gallery in Lagos
Lekki Phase I · Contemporary programme
Editorial Profile
Founded in 1983 by Chief Nike Davies-Okundaye and expanded to its current Lekki Phase I home in 2009, this five-story space functions as both gallery and cultural foundation, occupying a distinctive position within contemporary art in Lagos. Its program threads contemporary practice with deeply rooted Nigerian traditions, holding paintings, sculptures, and a substantial body of textile work — including batik, adire, and aso-oke — alongside beadwork and wood carving from artists across Nigeria and the wider African continent. The permanent display, drawn from a collection that reportedly exceeds 8,000 works, foregrounds Yoruba aesthetic vocabularies and pan-African dialogues rather than the market-oriented curation common to commercial spaces.
Operating under the Nike Art Foundation, the venue functions equally as exhibition site and pedagogical infrastructure, running apprenticeship-model workshops in dyeing, weaving, beadwork, and sculpture that have trained thousands of practitioners over four decades, with a sustained focus on women and emerging artists. This combined gallery-and-training-center identity distinguishes it among galleries in Lagos, as does its network of sister sites in Abuja, Osogbo, and Ogidi-Ijumu. Davies-Okundaye's own practice — recently presented at ART X Lagos and at Abu Dhabi Art 2025 — extends the foundation's international visibility, and the Lekki space regularly receives curators, collectors, and visiting artists drawn to its scale and its archive of Nigerian craft and contemporary production. Within the city's broader ecosystem of institutions in Lagos, the gallery occupies a hybrid register, neither strictly commercial nor museological.
Selected Artists
Nike Davies-Okundaye
Nigerian
Bruce Onobrakpeya
Nigerian
Kolade Oshinowo
Nigerian
Tola Wewe
Nigerian
Ndidi Dike
British, Nigerian
Peju Alatise
Nigerian
Josephine Oboh Macleod
British, Nigerian
Selected Exhibitions
Footnotes
Tola Wewe
Material Witness
Peju Alatise
Spotlight Art and Artists Review: Stephen Osuchukwu and Augustine Obayuwana
Stephen Osuchukwu, Augustine Obayuwana
Spotlight Art and Artists Review: Peju Layiwola and Peju Alatise
Peju Layiwola, Peju Alatise
Mother Dearest: An Ode to Motherhood
Nike Davies-Okundaye
Mother Dearest: Eternal Bond
Michelle Marcetic, Sophia Akinfolure, Motunrayo Safari, Allegra El-Koussa, Ibrahim Mayowa, Mariam Hammad, Omotoni Dada, Dalena Danda, Maria Norman-Salako
Explore Lagos
A local guide to Lagos, with links to its galleries, institutions, and wider Nigeria art context.
