A debut exhibition in New York traces Chinemerem “Eme” Omeh’s reckoning with memory, education and the fragile architecture of identity.
Chinemerem ‘Eme’ Omeh: The Strange Beauty of Impermanence
5th September, 2025 – 25th October , 2025
ACA Galleries
173 Tenth Avenue, New York
New York, NY — ACA Galleries will present The Strange Beauty of Impermanence, the New York debut of Nigerian-born painter Chinemerem “Eme” Omeh, from 5 September to 25 October 2025. The exhibition, his first solo presentation with the gallery, is a meditation on memory, transformation and the fragile construction of identity.
Born in Nsukka, Nigeria, in 1994, Omeh turned to painting after early struggles with dyslexia left him estranged from language and traditional education. Art offered him a way to communicate that felt both intuitive and truthful. “Not to paint beautiful works… but to paint the truth,” he explains.
Ink, Acrylic, and caked colors on canvas
24 x 30 in
61 x 76.2 cm
Courtesy of ACA Galleries
Classrooms, blackboards and tiled floors recur across the exhibition, emblematic spaces that hold the weight of memory and struggle.
In Conversations with the Forgotten Self, a small red-orange figure confronts a kneeling, faceless adult — the child and the man he has become in direct confrontation. “This work is a visual confrontation,” Omeh writes, “a sacred conversation between shadow and substance. Growth has occurred, yes, but not without cost.”
In Theater of the Unseen, a child stands alone onstage before empty rows of chairs. A glowing horse faces him, less an audience than a witness. “This is not merely a stage,” the artist reflects. “It is the mind. And these are not just figures. They are the soul in rehearsal, wrestling with the silence of the world.”
Ink, acrylic, and caked colors on canvas
43 x 65 in
109.2 x 165.1 cm
Courtesy of ACA Galleries
In Vestiges of Broken Creed, Omeh revisits the classroom where mathematics once represented failure. Now overgrown and illuminated, the room becomes a site of release. “I sit in that room as a figure of memory,” he notes, “not defeated, but reflective. This work is about questioning the systems that once defined us and realising they no longer hold the pen.”
Family and myth are equally present. In Idea of Camaraderie, drawn from an ancestral photograph, kinship is enclosed within a red square. “The family, encapsulated within a red square, serves as a symbolic testament to the sanctity of bloodline. A realm where conscious choices, rather than mere biological ties, solidify their unity.”
Taken together, the works form a deeply personal archive — an act of reckoning with the past and a reimagining of the self. Omeh earned a BA in Fine and Applied Arts from the University of Nigeria and is now based in Atlanta, Georgia. Working in acrylic, oil, ink and mixed media, he draws on personal history and Nigerian folklore to examine the intersections of memory, identity and resilience. His paintings have been exhibited in New York, London, Miami and across the United States.
Chinemerem ‘Eme’ Omeh: The Strange Beauty of Impermanence opens on the 5th of September, 2025 until the 25th of October , 2025 at ACA Galleries
©2025 ACA Galleries, Chinemerem ‘Eme’ Omeh
Art Plugged is a contemporary platform inspired by a relationship with the broader arts communities. We provide our audience with curated insight into the world of art, from exhibitions to artist interviews and more.
