Omenka Gallery presents a deeply personal artistic journey as multimedia artist Nelly Ating opens her debut digital exhibition “Eka Iban (Mother of Women)”.
Launching on June 13 and running until June 27, this digital presentation offers a poignant exploration of the complex, often delicate, bond between a millennial daughter and her boomer mother within the rich context of Nigerian sociocultural traditions.
“Eka Iban,” an Efik phrase resonating with the profound meaning of “mother of women,” sees Ating intricately weave her mother’s photographic archives into evocative, abstract mixed-media collages. Through these powerful works, she unearths the immense weight of cultural expectations that Nigerian women have shouldered across generations. Ating, a multimedia artist known for her work bridging photography and archival research, reclaims her mother’s narrative, transforming it into a testament to resilience, agency, and post-feminist ambition.
Ating shared, “My mother was my first employer… Eka Iban is an intimate project but also a recognition of my growth and choosing to accept socially constructed roles or dismantling them and, for once, restoring agency to my mother.”
This exhibition represents such an important artistic endeavour – transforming personal family archives into a broader commentary on generational relationships and women’s experiences within Nigerian cultural contexts.
Ating is reclaiming and recontextualising her mother’s story. By taking photographs that might have remained private family memories and transforming them into mixed media collages, she’s creating space for her mother’s narrative to exist beyond the traditional roles of religious devotion and domestic labour.
Ating’s evolution from documenting external conflicts like Boko Haram to exploring these intimate family dynamics shows an artist deepening her practice and turning her lens inward while maintaining the same investigative rigour.
The digital format through Omenka Gallery also makes this deeply Nigerian story accessible to global audiences, which feels especially relevant given the universal themes of mother-daughter relationships and generational expectations that transcend cultural boundaries.
The artist’s relationship with her mother included working as her shop assistant, experiences that shaped Ating’s ambitious spirit. “My mother was my first employer. She would pay me as her shop assistant, and we fought over that as well,” Ating recalls. “But my mother set the tone for the ambition I would later pursue.”
Ating’s transition into mixed media art emerged from ethical concerns about photography and her desire to experiment with self-portraiture. Her work bridges photography, archival research, and multimedia techniques to interrogate themes of identity, education, extremism, and migration.
Currently pursuing her Ph.D. at Cardiff University, Ating researches human rights discourse through archival images, her work has gained recognition both locally and internationally, establishing her as a rising voice in contemporary African art.
The concept of using family archives as raw material for contemporary art to explore cultural expectations and agency is fascinating, and it seems like Ating has found a powerful way to honour her mother while also examining the complexity of their relationship.
Omenka Gallery, one of Nigeria’s leading art institutions with 22 years of experience, provides the perfect platform for this deeply personal exhibition.
