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Artist: Collins Obijiaku

Roberts Projects presents Wherever You Are, Remember Me, an exhibition of new works by Collins Obijiaku and the artist’s third solo presentation with the gallery. Bringing together portraits and still lifes rendered in his distinctive linework and graphic compositions, the exhibition emerges from Obijiaku’s recent relocation from his native Nigeria to Chicago. Amid the sense of dislocation that accompanied his adjustment to a new place, he turned to painting as a way of carrying his former home with him—reconstructing it through memory even as he learned to inhabit the present. Rich with personal significance and social detail, these works consider how home can stretch across distance and time, remaining at once elastic and everlasting.

Wherever You Are, Remember Me marks both an evolution of and a tribute to Obijiaku’s earlier work, continuing his longstanding engagement with portraiture and the communities that shaped his upbringing in Nigeria’s Kaduna region. Drawn from the rhythms of everyday home life, his figures appear in quarter-length portraits against boldly blocked, vivid grounds that move between abstraction and softly evoked fragments of the natural world. Seen through a sentimental lens, these settings lend the paintings an intimate, dreamlike quality, as though recalling a presence from memory. Whether alone or gathered in groups, each figure meets the viewer with a quiet sense of confidence and self-possession.

In this new series, Obijiaku brings these personal recollections into conversation with art-historical references, weaving collective histories into his own memories and experiences. The paintings capture the persistence of place and the ways it remains present through reminiscence. In Small Fires, for instance, Obijiaku draws from Jan van Eyck's Arnolfini Portrait, particularly its use of symbolic objects to convey ideas beyond the visible scene. Here, a couple drawn from Obijiaku’s memories of the past is intertwined above a gleaming ring, which becomes a symbol of continuity, inheritance and the enduring bonds that connect one generation to the next.

Rengaji similarly draws from Obijiaku’s childhood memories of royal processions in Nigeria, when crowds gathered to watch the king pass through town. The painting embodies the anticipation and collective joy of these occasions through a richly composed gathering of figures. Its jewel-like palette of deep blue, crimson, ochre and gold recalls the luminous colors of illuminated manuscripts, while the frontal poses, crowned central figure and halo-like forms evoke the visual language of icon painting. These references provide the scene a timeless, ceremonial quality, transforming a personal recollection into a reflection on community, tradition and belonging.

The fusion of historical references and personal meaning is also acutely expressed in a group of still lifes, a new terrain for the artist. In Gathered Things, delicately rendered culinary objects are heavily stylized, moving beyond straightforward representation and becoming evocative fragments of a remembered home. Still Life with Poppies and Flowers in a Glass Vase similarly transform familiar floral arrangements into meditations on memory. Their sepia and amber-toned palettes give the paintings a fossilized quality, as though suspended in time. The flowers, at once beautiful and ephemeral, become quiet reminders of the fleeting present.

Across the exhibition, Obijiaku’s figures and objects exist somewhere between what is present and what has passed, reflecting the desire to reach back into memory. Through painting, Obijiaku gives form to that persistence, shaping fragments of personal history into images that feel both intimate and enduring. In this way, Wherever You Are, Remember Me is not simply an account of leaving home, but a reflection on how a sense of place endures through remembrance.

Collins Obijiaku, Portrait of Benedicta Rufus. Courtesy of the artist and Roberts Projects, Los Angeles, California