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AMEH EGWUH. “LIFE AFTER LIFE 4” (2020). ACRYLIC ON CANVAS. 54” X 60”. COURTESY OF RELE GALLERY, LOS ANGELES.
if you truly believe that death is not the end, but rather the
threshold to a new dimension of life, then why shouldn’t we throw parties instead of funerals? Why shouldn’t the life’s vibrant garden—its origin—also be its sendoff? In the radiant work of Nigerian painter Ameh Egwuh, viewers move through a series of scenarios in which the soul gracefully, restfully floats across that threshold, amid the trappings of celebration.
Across the works in Egwuh’s debut solo show, Life After Life, at the new Los Angeles location of Lagos-based Rele Gallery, we most often encounter a single figure, a young Black man whom the artist insists is “not specifically a self-portrait,” and whose face we never see. Egwuh deploys a lexicon of color, shape, and rich symbols behind and around this figure. Each background features wide-striped vertical panels, like wallpaper made of the
sky—blue on blue, with springtime clouds at eye level with the viewer and the ascendent figures, whose earthly life has ended, but whose whatever-is-next is just beginning. And there are white doves, in flight and at rest; and there are clocks with no hands
on the faces; there are hourglasses and flowers, and sometimes a patch of lush green lawn.
Pink balloons are a frequent motif—assertive, even aggres- sively signaling the birthday party energy of the deathliness. Pink balloons carpet the floor at Rele Gallery, too, which not only broad- cast this upbeat and celebratory symbolism out into the world, but whose proliferation made it impossible to enter or move through the space without gently kicking them out of the way. And if you’ve never tried it, please know that it is also impossible to be sad or angry while you’re kicking pink balloons around.
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