I’m Just a Boy revisits the formative years of Black and African masculinity. The show brings together ten contemporary African artists whose works delve into the complexities of growing up male in societies that prioritize toughness over tenderness, performance over presence. Featuring: Opeyemi, ⁠Ebuka Michael, Oliver Okolo, ⁠Okoye Emeka John, Andrés Montalván, Moses Zibor, Emeka Udemba, Anjel, Ebenezer Akinola, Rémy Samuz

Through painting, photography, and mixed media, each artist offers a deeply personal yet collectively resonant narrative, exploring themes of vulnerability, identity, resistance, and care.

I’m Just a Boy dares us to see the boy within the man. To witness softness without shame. To hold space for a masculinity that breathes. This exhibition explores the multifaceted experience of African masculinity by revisiting its earliest, rawest form: the boy. Through the lenses of ten contemporary African artists, the exhibition captures an emotional landscape rarely afforded to Black male subjects—tenderness, uncertainty, curiosity, vulnerability, and quiet rebellion.

This is not a retreat from manhood, but a re-rooting. Each work becomes a window into how masculinity is inherited, performed, resisted, and remade. The boy in these works is not naïve—he is watching, absorbing, becoming. I’m Just a Boy is not about nostalgia. It’s about reclamation. It honors the full emotional range of Black and African masculinity at a time when vulnerability is an act of resistance. In every gaze, gesture, and painted figure, these artists offer us a radical proposition: The boy never disappeared. He was simply waiting to be seen.

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