By Ṣeun Sedẹ Williams I have known Israel Dẹhumọ Padonu for over twenty years. I grew up with Izzy (as I fondly call him) within the sa...
By Ṣeun Sedẹ Williams
I have known Israel Dẹhumọ Padonu for over twenty years. I grew up with Izzy (as I fondly call him) within the same neighbourhoods in Badagry, in this quiet coastal town where the Atlantic and the Lagoon do not just border the land, but actually shape it, shape its geography, history, economy and people. As young lads, we were moulded by the same waters, breeze, sand and stories.
For nearly a decade now, as a historian with a deep personal stake in Badagry’s affairs, I have watched and followed closely as that boyhood curiosity matured into a distinct and increasingly assured artistic voice. I have collected several of his works over the years, not merely as an admirer but as someone who recognises the genius of what Padonu is about: reaching past the postcard version of our hometown to something truer. I have also had the privilege of sitting with him through the early stages of his ideation, incubating creative projects together, mulling over conceptions, watching sketches become enthralling paintings, and canvasses become powerful statements. Few things have been more rewarding than witnessing that evolution up close.
What has always struck me about Padonu’s work is how faithfully Badagry runs through it. Ours is a town too often reduced to a single chapter of history—the transatlantic slave trade. Padonu refuses that flattening, and so do I. His paintings insist that Badagry is also about its rich culture, fishing traditions, family ties, deep spirituality and indigenous knowledge systems. He draws on the verticality and mystery of the Igunnuko masquerade, translating its metaphysical weight into elongated, shape-shifting figures that feel both culturally ancestral and radically contemporary. And always, there is the ever-present sea, rendered again and again in his layered acrylic surfaces as memory itself, something that connects and separates, erases and preserves, carries us across time and space without ever letting go.
Padonu’s debut solo exhibition, When I “Sea” You, I Think of Home, is the fullest expression yet of everything I have watched take root in him—grief transformed intro meditation, personal loss questioning what communities inherit and carry forward, Badagry reimagined not as a site of departure but as a living archive. Knowing where he started, I feel confident to say: this is the work of an artist who has arrived!
If you have ever wondered what home feels like when it is much more than a place but something that you carry inside of you, this exhibition is for you.
When I “Sea” You, I Think of Home opens tomorrow, Saturday 19th September and will be showing through Saturday 26th September 2026, daily from 12 noon till 6pm, at Signature Beyond Art Galler, 107 Awolowo Road, Ikoyi, Lagos.
See it. Feel it. Come home!
Dr. Ṣeun Sedẹ Williams is a Badagry-born Nigerian
historian based in Dublin.
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