Upcoming Exhibition:

Richard Ayodeji Ikhide

Tales From Future Past

September 27 - November 15, 2025

CPM Gallery is thrilled to announce its upcoming exhibition of new works by Richard Ayodeji Ikhide, entitled Tales From Future Past. This marks the artist’s first solo show with the gallery.

Richard Ayodeji Ikhide creates works on paper using ink, watercolor, and gouache that investigate cosmology, mythmaking, and parallel realities. His practice is rooted in Nigeria’s cultural history and the Edo religion, where the world is divided into visible and invisible realms, with rituals and offerings used to interact with the spirit world. The visual style of Ikhide’s works melds traditions from his birthplace in Lagos with a wide range of influences he encountered as a young man growing up in London, including Japanese manga, comic books, and Renaissance artists such as Giovanni Tiepolo and William Blake.

Ikhide locates his world-building work in a recurring site called “Future Past”. This exhibition introduces three new bodies of work in that setting: ten small-scale (15 x 11 inches or smaller) tonal ink drawings, dense with cross-hatched detail reminiscent both of graphic novel illustration and Renaissance engravings; a suite of six medium sized (30 x 22 inches) watercolor and ink compositions that unfold as a sequence of vibrantly colored, cinematic vignettes that combine story, symbol, and atmosphere; and several irregularly shaped, large scale pieces depicting figures that use movement and dance as a vehicle to channel ancestral spirits.

Ikhide builds narratives through a fusion of intentional storytelling and intuitive free association. The figures are often accompanied by speech bubbles filled with amorphous shapes that evoke a universal form of communication beyond specific language. The scenes are at once ancient and futuristic, suggesting parallel worlds outside of a linear concept of time.

Tales From Future Past is also informed by Ikhide’s study of the 20th Century Romanian scholar of religion, Mircea Eliade’s writings on initiation and the passage of youth into adulthood, and his reflection on the scarcity of such communal spaces in contemporary urban life. By drawing on personal history as well as broader art-historical lineages, Ikhide highlights moments where specific spiritual traditions intersect with universal archetypes, reminding us that our stories form an evolving fabric of the human psyche.

Richard Ayodeji Ikhide (b. 1991 Lagos, Nigeria) studied Textile Design at Central Saint Martins, followed by a Postgraduate degree at the Royal Drawing School, London. Working between graphite, ink and watercolour, Ikhide’s focus on drawing is tied to an interest in the mark-making of our ancestors, and the affective dimensions of a two-dimensional practice. Taking inspiration from diverse archives and artifacts, Ikhide seeks to manifest the spiritual in material form. Recent solo exhibitions include: ‘Acts of Creation’, Victoria Miro Projects, London (2023); ‘MythMaking’, Steve Turner, Los Angeles (2021) ‘Cosmic Memory’, Steve Turner, Los Angeles (2021); ‘Future Past’, V.O Curations, London (2021); ‘Osmosis’, Zabludowicz Collection (2019). His work has been featured in exhibitions at FF Projects, Lagos, (2023); Untitled Art Fair, Victoria Miro Booth, Miami (2023); Sim Smith, London (2022); V.O Curations, London, UK, 2021; Zabludowicz Collection, London (2020); Guts Gallery (Online), London (2020); South London Gallery, London (2018); Christies, London (2017). Ikhide’s work has been acquired by the Royal Collection Trust.