By Udemma Chukwuma
Chika Idu’s Pure Water, a solo exhibition, returns to a recurring subject in the painter’s work: the human figure suspended beneath water. But this time, the imagery moves into sharper, more critical territory. His figures drift weightlessly through clear water, rendered with a thick, gestural application of paint that makes the surface appear almost alive. There is something serene and liberating about these bodies as they move through the water, yet beneath that beauty sits a more complicated question about purity, freedom and the world we inhabit.
