1 September 2026 Artist Ololade Oletubo presented Mixed Reality, a solo exhibition at Afrahouse Gallery, London, bringing audiences into a vivid world of colour, cultural expression and shared human experience.
Held at the gallery’s Haddo Street space, Mixed Reality showcased a body of expressive figurative works exploring the relationships that connect individuals to family, community, heritage and everyday life.
Oletubo’s paintings place people firmly at the heart of the narrative. Across the works, men gather in conversation, mothers carry their children, and groups of women share moments of movement, work and companionship. These familiar scenes are transformed through the artist’s energetic approach into powerful reflections on belonging and collective identity.
A defining feature of the exhibition was Oletubo’s bold use of colour and texture. Rich blues, oranges, purples, yellows, greens and turquoise were layered through vigorous, highly visible brushstrokes, creating compositions filled with movement and emotional intensity.
Traditional garments, headwraps, caps and jewellery also featured prominently throughout the works, reinforcing connections to African heritage while remaining firmly situated within a contemporary visual language.
The title Mixed Reality reflected the exhibition’s exploration of the many layers through which life is experienced. Reality, within Oletubo’s paintings, is not presented as a single fixed image. Instead, it emerges through the meeting of memory and observation, tradition and modernity, individuality and community.
The exhibition also drew attention to the significance of ordinary human interactions. Conversations, motherhood, friendship and daily responsibilities became worthy of artistic focus, allowing experiences that can easily pass unnoticed to assume a commanding presence on canvas.
By presenting these narratives in London, Mixed Reality created a meeting point between culturally specific experiences and a wider international audience. While the works were strongly rooted in African visual and social experiences, their themes of family, care, friendship and belonging extended beyond geographical boundaries.
Through expressive figures and richly textured compositions, Oletubo offered audiences a celebration of culture not as something static, but as something continually lived, shared and carried from one generation to another.
The exhibition at Afrahouse Gallery marked a compelling presentation of Oletubo’s artistic practice, demonstrating how contemporary figurative painting can serve as both an expression of cultural identity and a record of collective experience.
Mixed Reality ultimately celebrated the people, relationships and everyday moments through which communities are built and sustained transforming scenes of ordinary life into lasting images of dignity, connection and cultural pride.