Leonard Iheagwam, known professionally as SOLDIER, has opened his first New York solo exhibition, Reveal Yourself, Softly, at Market Gallery. On view through October 11th, the exhibition gathers new paintings that move between personal memory, inherited histories and fragments left by the Nigerian Civil War.
Leonard Iheagwam turns archives and memory into an exploration of what we choose to preserve
The paintings resist immediate interpretation. Blocks of colour, text, exposed canvas, collage and overpainting interrupt images, allowing some figures to emerge while others recede. For Iheagwam, painting functions as a form of editing, asking what is remembered or omitted and how meaning shifts when images are detached from their original contexts.
Drawing on Nigerian Civil War archives, family photographs, literature, religious imagery and found pictures, the artist sets disparate fragments against one another. His compositions move between autobiography and historical record, considering how images shape identity and collective memory.
The title Reveal Yourself, Softly suggests revelation as a gradual process. The works avoid complete narratives, occupying the space between recognition and uncertainty, where concealment and absence carry as much weight as visibility. “These paintings are personal to me and probably millions of Nigerians alive,” SOLDIER wrote. “They tell stories of war, erasure and displacement, but also stories of love, truth and home.”
Camouflage, a recurring element in Iheagwam’s practice, extends beyond its military associations into a method of covering, interrupting, erasing and revealing. Multiple perspectives and temporalities coexist across single surfaces, echoing the instability of memory and the continual reconstruction of history.
If you would like to find out more about Leonard Iheagwam’s artistic approach, we invite you to read our interview with the artist, in which he discusses the links between his personal history and social hierarchies, and how these influence his artistic practice.
Images courtesy of LEONARD IHEAGWAM and MARKET GALLERY
