Pathos, and the twilight of the idle (2019)
By Michael Armitage
Oil on Lubugo bark cloth
From The Kenyan Election Series
In the run-up to the 2017 elections in Kenya, Armitage joined a local TV crew filming an opposition party rally in Uhuru Park, Nairobi. The atmosphere he experienced there and the carnivalesque scenes he witnessed inspired this series of paintings in which Armitage explores power dynamics and the links between religious rhetoric, pathos and politics.
[Royal Academy]
Michael Armitage: Paradise Edict
(May — September 2021)
Michael Armitage is a Kenyan-born artist who works between Nairobi and London. His colourful, dreamlike paintings are loaded with provocative perspectives that play with visual narratives and challenge cultural assumptions, exploring politics, history, civil unrest and sexuality.
Made using Lubugo bark cloth, a culturally important material made of tree bark by the Baganda people in Uganda, many of his large-scale works draw on contemporary events, combining these with Western painting motifs.
This spring – just over 10 years since Armitage graduated from the Royal Academy Schools – we bring together 15 of his large-scale paintings from the past six years, exploring East African landscapes, politics and society.
Alongside will be a selection of 31 works by six East African contemporary artists: Meek Gichugu, Jak Katarikawe, Theresa Musoke, Asaph Ng’ethe Macua, Elimo Njau and Sane Wadu. Chosen by Armitage for their important role in shaping figurative painting in Kenya, these seminal artists have also had a profound impact on his own artistic development. A version of this part of the exhibition will be shown at the Nairobi Contemporary Art Institute, a non-profit visual arts space founded by Armitage.
[Royal Academy]
Taken in Royal Academy
Pathos, and the twilight of the idle (2019)
By Michael Armitage
Oil on Lubugo bark cloth
From The Kenyan Election Series
In the run-up to the 2017 elections in Kenya, Armitage joined a local TV crew filming an opposition party rally in Uhuru Park, Nairobi. The atmosphere he experienced there and the carnivalesque scenes he witnessed inspired this series of paintings in which Armitage explores power dynamics and the links between religious rhetoric, pathos and politics.
[Royal Academy]
Michael Armitage: Paradise Edict
(May — September 2021)
Michael Armitage is a Kenyan-born artist who works between Nairobi and London. His colourful, dreamlike paintings are loaded with provocative perspectives that play with visual narratives and challenge cultural assumptions, exploring politics, history, civil unrest and sexuality.
Made using Lubugo bark cloth, a culturally important material made of tree bark by the Baganda people in Uganda, many of his large-scale works draw on contemporary events, combining these with Western painting motifs.
This spring – just over 10 years since Armitage graduated from the Royal Academy Schools – we bring together 15 of his large-scale paintings from the past six years, exploring East African landscapes, politics and society.
Alongside will be a selection of 31 works by six East African contemporary artists: Meek Gichugu, Jak Katarikawe, Theresa Musoke, Asaph Ng’ethe Macua, Elimo Njau and Sane Wadu. Chosen by Armitage for their important role in shaping figurative painting in Kenya, these seminal artists have also had a profound impact on his own artistic development. A version of this part of the exhibition will be shown at the Nairobi Contemporary Art Institute, a non-profit visual arts space founded by Armitage.
[Royal Academy]
Taken in Royal Academy