David Ụzọchukwu

The Exhibition

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.

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.

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 – January 2, 2028).

"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

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.

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.