About the Gallery
Mahanaim is unique in cultivating Africa's finest art and exposing it to a worldwide audience.
Our position
Africa's contemporary art does not need translating. It needs distribution, scholarship, and the patient kind of representation that allows an artist's work to find the collectors who will live with it. That is what we exist to do.
We work directly with painters, photographers, and sculptors across the continent — many showing internationally for the first time through Mahanaim. Each work is acquired or consigned on terms that respect the artist's practice and their long-term market.
Our approach
We curate slowly. Works are chosen one at a time, in conversation with the artist, and accompanied by the documentation a serious collector expects: signed certificate of authenticity, condition report, and full provenance from the studio onward.
The pace is deliberately closer to a gallery programme than to an online marketplace.
Founder & Lead Curator
Bilikisu Lawal.
Bilikisu leads the gallery's curation and artist relationships. Over twenty-five years, she has built a practice at the intersection of fine art and luxury design — advising private collectors, multinational companies, and diplomatic missions on acquisitions, commissions, and the placement of significant works.
Her network spans Africa, Europe, China, and the Americas. That reach is what allows Mahanaim to introduce artists in cities they have not yet shown in, and to place works with the collectors most likely to keep them in conversation.
Bilikisu's belief — and the gallery's — is that African contemporary work belongs in the same rooms as any other serious art of our moment. The job is simply to make sure the right people see it.
For artists
We represent artists on consignment and, in deeper relationships, on long-term representation. Commission shares are transparent, payment terms are short, and reproduction rights remain with the artist throughout.
If you are an artist working in a contemporary African practice and would like to be considered, write to hello@mahanaim.gallery with images and a short statement.
For collectors and institutions
Private collectors, multinationals, embassies, and corporate collections are welcome by appointment for studio introductions, condition advice, and bespoke commissions. We ship fully insured worldwide and welcome enquiries on any work shown on the site — including those marked “Price on request”.
Browse the catalogue or reach Bilikisu and the team directly at hello@mahanaim.gallery.
“A work of art is finished only once it finds its home.”