Lagos is set to receive something it has not seen before as Spanish artist, Yago Sanchez, brings his crystal mosaic works to Nigeria for the very first time.
In what promises to be an immersive exhibition titled, The Precision of Light in the Dark, it is curated by Nigerian-British artist and ancestral living advocate, Lola Bashua.
The exhibition runs from 17 to 20 June 2026 at Integra Art Space in Lekki, Lagos, and is open to the public. It marks a significant moment for Sanchez, whose decade-long career has been rooted in the Spanish craft tradition and for Lagos as a city increasingly at the centre of global contemporary art.
The Precision of Light in the Dark is an immersive body of crystal mosaic work that asks the viewer to slow down and look again. Up close, each piece fractures into hundreds of individual crystal fragments, vitreous tesserae, glass, marble, assembled with a precision that only reveals itself with proximity. Step back and a figure, a face, a form emerges from what seemed like fragmentation.
It is a show about the relationship between detail and distance, between what we see clearly and what we understand. Sanchez draws on techniques spanning traditional Roman mosaic, the trencadís method popularised by Gaudí and the characteristic stone craft of Granada, applying them to works that feel entirely of the present moment.
Light moves across the surface differently at different hours. The works are not static. They shift.
For Lagos audiences, this is a first encounter with an artist whose material language is unlike anything currently in the city’s gallery circuit. The exhibition creates a bridge between Spanish craft heritage and the expanding scale of contemporary African art, a conversation between two traditions that rarely share a room.
“I brought Yago Sanchez to Lagos because I believe Lagos is now ready to host international artists and because I believe this work deserves a Lagos audience,” says curator, Lola Bashua.
“What drew me to his work was the same thing that draws me to any creative practice that holds its integrity; the commitment to material truth. Every crystal fragment in these pieces is placed by hand, with intention. There is no shortcut in mosaic. The image only emerges through patience, precision, and a deep understanding of how light moves through matter.
“As a painter working in oils, I understand the relationship between a medium and what it reveals. Yago’s crystals reveal something I find deeply resonant with my own practice, the idea that the complete can only be fully understood once you have sat with the fragments. That is not just an artistic idea. It is a way of seeing.
“Hosting a western artist is not to overshadow our homegrown talents but to validate them, reinforcing to them that home is the best place to be. As we are being restored as the masters of the arts, a nod to Nok, the world now comes to us to pay homage. We are establishing Nigeria as the world centre of arts, one exhibition at a time, “ she said.
Sanchez is a self-taught Spanish artist with a career spanning more than a decade. His entry into the art world began with a sustained exploration of mosaic as a living form, working with vitreous tesserae, glass, marble and stone across techniques that include trencadís (popularised by Gaudí), traditional Roman mosaic, and the characteristic stone craft of Granada.
What began as a deep curiosity for the world of art in all its expressions became a profession and a discipline. His crystal mosaic works have evolved into a distinctive visual language that sits at the intersection of craft, sculpture, and painting, surfaces that hold light and release it differently depending on where you stand. The Lagos exhibition is his Nigerian debut.
Lola Bashua is a Nigerian-British artist, curator, actress and indigenous African ancestral lifestyle advocate. As a curator, Bashua is drawn to work that holds material integrity and spiritual intention, qualities she pursues in equal measure across her painting, acting performances, writing and the ancestral vegan lifestyle practice she documents publicly and practises daily.
The Precision of Light in the Dark is her first major curatorial project in Lagos.
The Precision of Light in the Dark is made possible with the support of Uno Telos, a Lagos-based technology and multi-systems integrator operating across nine African markets.
Working at the intersection of telecommunications, network infrastructure, surveillance and emerging technologies, Uno Telos has built a reputation as one of Nigeria’s most forward-looking technology companies since its founding in 2004.
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