Theophilus Adewuyi is the modern day usual artist. He takes us through his studio daily routine using his socials and there by connecting with his audience at that meeting point. Theophilus is visuals  on easy motion. When he received his Meeting Point portfolio, his Insta story was awashed with congratulatory messages. Now, Meeting Point meta the audience at the nation’s federal capital. 

At Orisun Gallery in Abuja this October 28, 2026, Theophilus Adewuyi opens a new chapter in his life by welcoming us to Meeting Point, his latest solo exhibition. He believes it is important for us to that some people enter our lives and stay. Others cross our paths briefly, leaving behind memories we may not fully understand until much later.

Words Ireho Aito | Don’t Keep Your Art in the Finger! Graphics Adewale Oseni .

Sometimes, a familiar face brings back an entire period of our lives. At other times, an encounter that seemed ordinary when it happened becomes something we carry for years. It is this part of human experience that Theophilus Adewuyi continues to explore in his paintings.

For iBAND Magazine, Meeting Point is not an entirely new story. In August, we explored the artist’s portfolio of 12 paintings in our Don’t Keep Your Art in the Finger! series, examining his interest in human encounters, familiar faces, relationships, movement and the memories people leave behind. Now, the series moves into another space as Adewuyi prepares to present Meeting Point: Every Viewer Leaves with a Memory, a solo exhibition opening at Orisun Gallery in Abuja on October 28, 2026.

There is something awesome about the title. A meeting point is usually understood as a place where people come together before continuing their separate journeys. But Adewuyi looks beyond the physical encounter. What happens when the people we meet are no longer around? What remains when the conversation ends, when we leave a familiar place or when life takes us in different directions? These are questions that run through the artist’s work, giving the series a meaning that extends beyond the people and situations represented on canvas.

Adewuyi’s interest in memory has roots in his own childhood. Growing up in Ada, Osun State, he was surrounded by images through his father’s photography. The family’s collection of black-and-white photographs introduced him early to the ability of an image to preserve a person, a place or a moment long after the original experience has passed. Painting would eventually give him another way to explore that relationship between images and memory, allowing him to move beyond recording appearances to interpret the feelings and associations that make an encounter memorable.

His paintings bring together people, colours, movement and familiar details of everyday life. Women and their hairstyles, couples, families and individual figures have featured in his practice, each offering another way to consider identity, affection, belonging and the relationships that shape our experiences. His approach leaves room for viewers to bring their own memories into the work rather than simply accept a single interpretation.

This is particularly important to Meeting Point. Adewuyi has explained that he does not want people to stand before his paintings merely to admire them and move on. He wants them to pause, reflect and find something of themselves in what they see. A face might remind someone of an old friend; a family might bring back thoughts of home; a particular colour or arrangement might recall a person who has not been seen for years.

The painting, in that moment, becomes personal to the viewer.

Water also provides an important way into the series. Adewuyi draws on the Yoruba expression Omi l’eyan, connecting the movement of water with human life. Water flows, changes direction and encounters other streams along its path. People, too, move between places, relationships and circumstances, gathering experiences as they go. In the paintings, flowing textures help express this sense of movement, while the combination of acrylic and oil gives the artist room to explore different surfaces and visual effects.

As Adewuyi has explained, “I am not painting the meeting alone; I am painting what the meeting leaves behind.” It is a telling statement because it brings the central idea of the series into focus. The encounter may be brief, but its effect can last much longer. A person may leave our lives without disappearing entirely from our memories.

The new exhibition offers audiences an opportunity to encounter these ideas in a gallery setting. For those who have followed the artist’s work online or through previous presentations, it provides another occasion to spend time with his paintings. For those meeting his work for the first time, it offers an entry point into an artistic practice shaped by people, cultural identity, contemporary life and the experiences that connect us.

Curated by Ahmed Mohammed Bello, Meeting Point: Every Viewer Leaves with a Memory opens on Wednesday, October 28, at 3 p.m. The exhibition runs until October 31, 2026, at Orisun Gallery, first floor, Tropical Galleria, Muhammadu Buhari Way, Central Business District, Abuja. Admission is free, but registration is compulsory.

For Adewuyi, the idea of a meeting point extends beyond the canvas. His own artistic journey has been shaped by encounters with people, places, exhibitions and audiences, while digital platforms have helped his work reach viewers beyond his immediate environment. Each new presentation creates another opportunity for the paintings to meet people whose experiences may be very different from his own.

This is the most unique thing about this exhibition. Adewuyi begins with his observations of human life, but he does not ask viewers to remember exactly what he remembers. He leaves room for them to bring their own experiences into the conversation.

We may stand before the same painting and see different things. One person may recognise a familiar face; another may remember a journey, a relationship or a place left behind. What connects these responses is not necessarily the same memory, but the human experience of remembering.

By the time a viewer leaves the gallery, the painting may have become something more than an image encountered on a wall. It may have opened a door to a moment in that viewer’s own life.

That is where Meeting Point finds its meaning. People meet, lives move on, and memories remain. Sometimes, all it takes is a painting to bring them back.

iBAND Magazine, Celebrating Visual Art from the Original.

Africa | Visual Art | Lifestyle | Culture