Goodman Gallery presents Yinka Shonibare’s Earth Pictures, an exhibition that explores the profound impact of Western colonisation and industrialisation on nature and climate change across the African continent. Through his masks and a new series of quilts, Yinka Shonibare draws attention to endangered species and the abundance of nature, while also highlighting how human actions negatively affect our planet. The exhibition runs concurrently with the artist’s first major exhibition on the African continent, Safiotra [Hybridités/Hybridities] on view at Madagascar’s Fondation H.

A new series of quilts produced for the exhibition titled Nature Works will make their global debut in Johannesburg and underscores the polluting consequences of extractive processes. Through striking composition, vivid colour and intricate needlework, Shonibare creates beauty in ultimately dystopian landscapes that illustrate the consequences of industrial over-exploitation in Africa. The history of colonisation on the continent has always centred on the extraction of both human and natural resources. The series of quilts here, portray landscapes as a genre which is to be analysed and debated. Human intervention in the landscape, whether it be the burning of gas flares in Nigeria or the damage to surface soil through the oil well drilling in Algeria, contribute to environmental destruction and the broader impacts of climate change and its disproportionate impact on the Global South.

Alongside, the artist will present an ongoing series of quilt works dedicated to wildlife and endangered species on the African Continent. Depicting the Red Colobus (Genus Piliocolobus), a species of monkey threatened with extinction found in forests from Senegal in the west, to the Zanzibar archipelago in the east. Red Colobuses are among the most vulnerable mammals to be targeted from heavily hunted forests. African Flower Magic (2025) depicts flora also facing ecological erasure and native to Southern Africa, specifically South Africa’s Northern Cape and Namibia’s arid regions.

Displayed in dialogue with the quilts, are Shonibare’s carved reproductions of African ancestral masks – here hand painted in the hallmark batik employed across his works. The sculptures offer a glimpse into the pre-industrial African spiritual beliefs which coalesced harmoniously with nature. At a time of environmental crisis, the masks present in both the quilts and sculptural works exist as symbolic protectors of vulnerable flora and fauna.

Earth Pictures maps a concerning topography: one of ever-changing landscapes and environments shaped by extraction, greed and the lingering legacy of colonialism. The exhibition also highlights the urgent need to confront the consequences of Western colonial industrialisation and its role in the degradation of Africa’s environment.

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