If the $3 million record-making auction sale by Nigerian-born Los Angeles based visual artist Njideka Akunyili Crosby in 2017 didn’t already convince of the rising profile of art by female African artists and female artists from the Africa diaspora, then this recent exhibition in London is another signifier to the fact that Akinyuli Crosby isn’t a one-off and there are many other female African artists with works to dominate the global art market in the near future.

The epoch-making exhibition by the London-based gallery, House of Fine Art (HOFA), has on display 32 artworks by 18 young, up-and-coming female artists from Africa or of African descent with an aim of projecting them into the mainstream. 

The exhibition which runs until August 31 is titled “Mother of Mankind”, with a collection of works centering around the subject of black femininity and helping the audience peer into the lives, dreams, and imaginations of African women.

According to the exhibition’s curator, Ghanaian-British gallerist Adora Mba, the exhibition is about bringing together incredible artists and giving them the platform they deserve.

Mba further described the show as an “artistic call to arms” which she was inspired to do after seeing a series of group exhibitions featuring the same male African artists. 

“There’s an incredible roster of female artists, contemporary artists, doing really cool stuff, and it needs to be seen,” she says.”I really just wanted the world to see that African art is more than portraiture from male painters.”

She continued that after promoting contemporary African art for many years, she is pleased the rest of the world has “caught on”.

“This is just the beginning,” she said. “To do it in London is special because it’s at the center of the art world and is a place with so many different cultures. I am a Nigerian, I’m Ghanaian but I was born and raised in England, so I’m British.”

“I think there is something about that global cross-continental dialogue which I wanted to bring. It is like a world map of what is going on with the artists,” she added.

The works on display especially capture the African woman experience in a peculiarly personal way with scenes of women braiding each other’s hair, lounging in a pool, drinking tea together, or getting ready for a night out.

“In Western art, people are used to seeing very normal depictions, it’s not strange or otherworldly,” says Mba. “I think that’s what the artists are showing. We chill, we swim, we do our hair. The experiences are unique to us as Black women…but it’s showing that we, like everyone else, live our lives and do these mundane things.”

Mba’s overall hope for “Mother of Mankind” is that it will make viewing the work of young, Black female African artists an everyday affair.

“Everyone is like ‘we get it and it is amazing,'” she said. “I am really glad that the artists are being recognized. Emotionally, I feel like I am living my dream come true.”