Inside Yinka Ilori’s ‘Joy Through Resistance’, a powerful meditation on faith, family and diasporic resilience

For years, Yinka Ilori has been described as an artist of joy. The phrase follows him almost everywhere. It appears in reviews, interviews and introductions, attached to the vivid colours and communal spirit that have come to define his public commissions and design projects around the world.

Yet standing inside ‘Joy Through Resistance: He Who Laughs Last, Laughs Best’, his first solo gallery exhibition in London, it becomes clear that Ilori is asking a different question altogether. Not what joy looks like but where it comes from.

The answer unfolds through flowers, lace and sound, beginning with stories of migration, faith and family. Above all, it emerges through the exhibition’s title, borrowed from a proverb that carries particular significance within the context of the show. ‘He Who Laughs Last, Laughs Best’ is less a declaration of happiness than a statement of endurance. The final laugh belongs to the person who survives, the person who remains hopeful. And the person who continues to create, celebrate and gather despite adversity.

For Ilori, joy is not escapism; it is a place of pride.

Presented at Cristea Roberts Gallery, the exhibition brings together new and recent works across painting, print and sculpture, with an immersive sound installation. It is also Ilori’s most personal presentation to date, shaped by grief, memory and the cultural codes of the West African diaspora. The artist has described the show as ‘a homecoming’, one that brings together ‘music, faith, my heritage, resistance, joy’ in a gallery setting after years of working across public space and international commissions.

For Ilori, the timing is important. ‘Most of my work over the last ten years has been centred around joy, folklore, affirmation and creating works that celebrate communities within public space,’ he says. Developed during a period of personal reflection shaped by conversations with family, therapy and a deeper engagement with memory, the exhibition examines the emotional and cultural foundations from which joy emerges. Rather than presenting joy as an uncomplicated state of being, Ilori approaches it as something inherited, practised and continually renewed.

Much of that understanding can be traced back to the Nigerian churches of Ilori’s childhood. Growing up in London, he watched his parents navigate the uncertainty many immigrant families face as they build a life in a new country. Yet his takeaway was not anxiety, but what happened afterwards. Every Sunday, the church transformed into something larger than a place of worship; it became a site of release and community.

‘I remember my parents telling me stories about when they were living in London as illegal immigrants,’ he says. ‘They were going to different lawyers to get their indefinite stay, and then going to church every Sunday, praying. I also saw them dancing for an hour at church, shaking off all the anxiety, the confusion, the fear of being deported back to Nigeria.’

For many within the African diaspora, the church operates as far more than a religious institution. It is a place where culture, language, music and memory are carried across generations through prayer, rhythms, and collective participation. For a young Ilori, these gatherings offered an early lesson in the relationship between joy and survival. ‘When I saw them at church on a Sunday, I saw so much joy in them, and nothing mattered to them. That was where I saw first-hand resistance through joy.’

In Ilori’s work, joy is not simply depicted as the absence of difficulty that exists alongside uncertainty. Instead, it illustrates how someone can still shine amid challenges. The exhibition suggests that communities do not arrive at joy because hardship disappears; they arrive there because celebration itself becomes a way of carrying hardship together. Joy manifests through sound, the choice of material and medium, and ritual – a commitment to continue gathering, celebrating, and imagining futures despite uncertainty.

Floral motifs recur throughout the exhibition, particularly the shape of Nigerian yellow trumpet flower and the British daffodil. The two blooms offer a precise metaphor for Ilori’s dual identity, one rooted in Nigeria and one in London. ‘These two flowers are from different parts of the world, they’re the same colour, and for me they mean the same thing,’ Ilori says. ‘Yellow is a symbol of hope, resilience and rebirth.’

Layered behind these flowers are ornamental lace patterns, which become one of the exhibition’s most trusted materials. In West African diasporic traditions, lace is worn in church and ceremonial contexts as a marker of dignity, pride and style. For Ilori, it is also domestic memory; lace filled his childhood home, bought and sold by his mother, appearing across garments, tables, walls and curtains. ‘My mum loved lace, and lace made her feel her happiest,’ he says. ‘Nigerians love to spend money on lace. That was them resisting and showing joy through their hard-earned cash, wearing lace and looking their best.’ As a surface, lace’s delicacy speaks of vulnerability, while its endurance reflects the resilience of communities shaped by displacement and perseverance.

The same ideas flow into the exhibition’s sculptural works. A custom-made shekere decorated with beads, handmade congas and a drum kit wrapped in lace invite visitors into a space that recalls worship and gathering. Through instruments and play, sound functions as a form of cultural memory.

The exhibition’s two sound commissions extend these ideas further. Composer Peter Adjaye’s contribution unfolds through brass and horn arrangements that move between warning and celebration. Composer and producer James William Blades draws on field recordings, Yoruba lullabies, church hymns, and Nigerian horn samples, with songs drifting in and out of focus, tracing fragments of memory overlapping with fragments of history. Sound and compositions transform the gallery into a space of listening as much as looking.

‘With sound you can take people on a journey,’ Ilori says. ‘I could take you to Nigeria, to Ghana, to Morocco, wherever.’ For him, music, faith and creativity are ways of maintaining tenderness, humour and purpose. ‘I think people want more soul out of life. With the pressures of life, war, crime, policing, whatever the problems are, you need something else to give you release, hope and clarity.’

The exhibition also complicates the idea of Ilori as the ‘architect of joy’. Here, joy is neither fleeting nor accidental, but something inherited, sustained and passed between generations. ‘This show is another testament,’ Ilori says. ‘It felt like the right time to show the importance of joy from a different perspective, in different mediums, in a gallery space.’

At Cristea Roberts Gallery, joy is given roots in sound, lace, memory, faith and history. It becomes less a burst of colour with affirmations and more a form of cultural inheritance, one that laughs last because it has learned to endure.

‘Yinka Ilori: Joy Through Resistance, He Who Laughs Last, Laughs Best’ is at Cristea Roberts Gallery, London, from 5 June to 11 July 2026