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David Ụzọchukwu: Bodies of Water at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art

Galerie Gomis presents David Ụzọchukwu’s first solo museum exhibition, Bodies of Water, at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, June 10 to September 27, 2026.

Galerie Gomis is pleased to announce David Ụzọchukwu: Bodies of Water, the artist’s first solo museum exhibition, on view at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art in Memphis, Tennessee from June 10 through September 27, 2026. Curated by Efe Igor Coleman, the exhibition marks a landmark moment in Ụzọchukwu’s practice and in the institution’s programming.

Figure in patterned chainmail dress, arms outstretched, lower body dissolving into a fishtail above dark water
From the series Bodies of Water. Photo: David Ụzọchukwu, courtesy of Galerie Gomis.

A meditation on hybrid being

A poetic meditation on identity, migration, and belonging, Bodies of Water presents a world of hybrid beings, part human, part animal, moving through surreal, aqueous landscapes. Working across photography and digital montage, Ụzọchukwu dissolves the boundaries between reality and fantasy, imagining figures adorned with fins, scales, and other transformative traits. The resulting images echo the adaptive strategies of diasporic communities navigating environments shaped by hostility and exclusion, while affirming the fluid, limitless possibilities of Black existence.

We’re proud to present David Ụzọchukwu’s first major U.S. museum exhibition here in Memphis. This exhibition is part of our commitment to placing Memphis in dialogue with artists, ideas, and audiences far beyond the city.

Dr. Patricia Lee Daigle, Chief Curator, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art

Following the Mississippi

The exhibition traces the course of the Mississippi River through the American South. Following its Memphis presentation, Bodies of Water will travel to the Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis, Minnesota (October 16, 2027 to January 2, 2028).

Young man rising from a green ocean wave, draped in white cloth
From the series Bodies of Water. Photo: David Ụzọchukwu, courtesy of Galerie Gomis.

About the artist

David Ụzọchukwu (b. 1998) is an Austrian-Nigerian photographer and filmmaker working between Berlin and Brussels. His work has been exhibited internationally at the Victoria and Albert Museum (London), Bozar (Brussels), Fotografiska (New York and Shanghai), Museo de Arte Moderno (Mexico City), Rencontres d’Arles, and Unseen Amsterdam. His photographs are held in public collections including Collection Pictet (Switzerland), Musée de la Photographie de Saint-Louis (Senegal), and The Wedge Collection (Canada). Ụzọchukwu is represented by Galerie Gomis.

Group of figures gathered on a small rock reflected in still water beneath a pastel sky
From the series Bodies of Water. Photo: David Ụzọchukwu, courtesy of Galerie Gomis.

About the curator

Efe Igor Coleman is an independent curator and scholar specialising in African diasporic art. She holds a Ph.D. in History from Yale University, with a certificate in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. She has served as Blackmon Perry Assistant Curator of African American Art and Art of the African Diaspora at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, and as Assistant Director of Academic Engagement at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.

Exhibition catalogue

A catalogue accompanies the exhibition, published by Paul Holberton Press (90 pages, 30 plates). Featuring newly commissioned essays and reflections, the volume brings together Efeoghene Igor Coleman, Ekow Eshun, Stefanie Hessler, and writer Troy L. Wiggins to explore Ụzọchukwu’s work as a meditation on transformation, survival, and the limitless possibilities of Black existence.

Gallery: scenes from Bodies of Water

Figure in patterned chainmail dress, arms outstretched, lower body dissolving into a fishtail above dark water
David Ụzọchukwu, from Bodies of Water.
Close-up portrait, eyes lowered, with warm orange bokeh in the foreground
David Ụzọchukwu, from Bodies of Water.
Figure shrouded in white fishing net on a beach at dusk
David Ụzọchukwu, from Bodies of Water.
Nude figure in water with a fin emerging along the back
David Ụzọchukwu, from Bodies of Water.
Silver light over a dark sea beneath layered clouds
David Ụzọchukwu, from Bodies of Water.
Man with the body of a horse standing at the shoreline at dusk
David Ụzọchukwu, from Bodies of Water.
Young man rising from a green ocean wave, draped in white cloth
David Ụzọchukwu, from Bodies of Water.
Group of figures gathered on a small rock reflected in still water beneath a pastel sky
David Ụzọchukwu, from Bodies of Water.

Photo: Courtesy of David Ụzọchukwu and Galerie Gomis. SEVENSEAS Media thanks Galerie Gomis for sharing this exhibition with our readers.

About the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art

The Memphis Brooks Museum of Art in Memphis, Tennessee, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the American South. With a collection spanning five thousand years of art history, the museum is committed to presenting diverse, internationally significant exhibitions and to engaging its community through art.

About Galerie Gomis

Founded in 2016 by Marie Gomis-Trezise, Galerie Gomis is a nomadic gallery dedicated to photography and mixed media. Its programme is rooted in amplifying the voices of artists from Africa, its diaspora, and the Global South, championing a new wave of image-makers whose work defies cultural barriers and challenges social constructs. Since its inception, the gallery has presented artists at some of the world’s most prestigious platforms, including Paris Photo, Les Rencontres d’Arles, the Dak’Art Off Biennale, 1-54 Art Fair London & New York, AKAA, and Dover Street Market Paris, alongside regular pop-up exhibitions.

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