Leonard ‘SOLDIER’ Iheagwam: Reveal Yourself, Softly

Reveal Yourself, Softly is a series of paintings assembled through acts of layering, concealment and revelation. Drawing from the Nigerian Civil War archives, personal photographs, literature, religious imagery and found images, the works bring together visual fragments that would rarely occupy the same space. Other than illustrating history, they also explore how images accumulate meaning when removed from their original contexts and placed into dialogue with one another.

Painting becomes a method of editing. Images are interrupted by blocks of colour, passages of unfinished canvas, text, collage and overpainting. Figures emerge with clarity while others dissolve into the surface, leaving only traces of their presence. This process reflects the instability of memory itself, never complete, but continually reconstructed through personal experience, inherited histories and collective narratives.

The title, Reveal Yourself, Softly, proposes revelation as a gradual act rather than an immediate one. The paintings resist instant legibility, asking viewers to move between recognition and uncertainty. What is visible is only part of the story; absence, omission and concealment become equally important forms of representation.

Moving between autobiography and historical record, the works consider how identities are shaped through the images we inherit, remember and choose to preserve. The work suggests that painting is not simply a way of depicting the world, but a way of questioning how it is seen.

Artist Bio:

Leonard Iheagwam (b. 2000, Lagos, Nigeria), known professionally as SOLDIER, is a Nigerian multidisciplinary artist based in London. Working across painting, collage, sculpture and installation, his practice examines the ways images shape memory, identity and collective history. Drawing from personal archives, Nigerian Civil War photography, religious iconography, literature and found imagery, he constructs layered compositions that move between autobiography and historical record.

Central to SOLDIER’s practice is the idea of camouflage, not simply as a military pattern, but as a visual and conceptual strategy. Images are concealed, interrupted and revealed through acts of painting, collage and erasure, inviting viewers to question how histories are constructed, remembered and obscured. Rather than presenting fixed narratives, his works allow multiple images, temporalities and perspectives to coexist within a single surface.

Influenced by his upbringing in Lagos, his father’s role as a priest, the visual culture of skateboarding and an enduring interest in popular culture, SOLDIER approaches painting as a site where personal experience intersects with wider political and cultural histories. His works frequently oscillate between intimacy and spectacle, combining family photographs with archival documents, portraiture with abstraction, and historical references with contemporary visual language.