Love, while beautiful, can also be utterly devastating.
Rele, Lagos proudly presents 'After the Dance', a solo exhibition by Nigerian Artist Ugo Ahiakwo. Ahiakwo’s practice is defined by a dialogue with materials, in which discarded vehicle parts and industrial fragments are transformed into sculptural forms that oscillate between resilience and fragility. Bent metal, polished surfaces, and rusted scars bear the marks of violence and repair, becoming metaphors for the fault lines and redemptive possibilities of human intimacy.
After the Dance takes its title from Marvin Gaye’s song and Jan Gaye’s memoir, which recounts how a relationship that began in beauty and passion unraveled into abuse and turmoil. After the Dance expands on themes of intimacy, fracture, and redemption that have shaped Ugo’s evolving practice. Here, Ahiakwo turns to love itself as subject matter, not only as tenderness and bloom, but also as a volatile terrain where passion can quickly unravel into control, manipulation, or violence.
Some of the works carry floral inflections, suggestive of flirtation, courtship, and desire in bloom. Others bear the chaos of conflict, their dented and scarred surfaces inscribed with fractured, near-illegible text that mirrors the collapse of communication in moments of violence. Yet Ahiakwo also gestures toward healing and redemption: certain works recall prayers or sacrificial forms, invoking love as an act of accountability, forgiveness, and restoration.
With After the Dance, Ahiakwo meditates on the paradox of intimacy, its ability to nurture and redeem, as well as its potential to wound and devastate. In presenting love as both fragile and transformative, he calls us to approach it with empathy, care, and responsibility, reminding us that without these, even the most tender of relationships can fracture beyond recognition.
