We Contain Multitudes

Montague Contemporary in partnership with NYC Culture Club,  presents, "We Contain Multitudes," an exhibition curated by Laura Day Webb.

 
The exhibition examines multifaceted perceptions and experiences of identity, belonging, and womanhood, and their relationship to cultural heritage and the contemporary world. 

The exhibitions opened November 16, 2022 and closes January 15, 2023

In Memoriam; Why Should I Be Out of Mind Because I Am Out of Sight?

Mother

Death is nothing at all. It does not count.
I have only slipped away into the next room.
Nothing has happened.
Everything remains exactly as it was.
I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged.
Whatever we were to each other, that we are still.
Call me by the old familiar name.
Speak of me in the easy way which you always used.
Put no difference into your tone.
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.
Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me, pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household word that it always was.
Let it be spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it.
Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same as it ever was.
There is absolute and unbroken continuity.
What is this death but a negligible accident?
Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight?
I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just round the corner.
All is well. Nothing is hurt; nothing is lost.
One brief moment and all will be as it was before.
How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!

-Henry Scott Holland 

13 Bienal do Mercosul - Trauma, Dreams, Escape

"Nearly all of those who survive trauma experience some form of sleep disorder, such as insomnia. But for about half of the three-quarters of people, it is vivid dreams that prevent them from sleeping deeply and which open the doors of their consciousness to a path of invention". -excerpt from 13th Mercosul biennial  is investigating the work of artists that have included the narrative sequence formed by these three words - Trauma, Dreams, Escape – in their works.

On The Skin of Strangers (detail) 2022

After the pandemic, a condition that was imposed on all humanity we explored new ways to express ourselves, to understand the traumas the pandemic exposed in all of us. The work I've presented in the biennial whose theme is, Trauma, Dreams Escape”, curated by Marcello Dantas, is an extension of an ongoing series that examines the womb( and agency) ; the womb is central in the exploration and is used here as an allegory, referencing beginnings, rebirth and transitions. The human form is stripped of skin, a recurring motif, which is often an identifier that informs stereotypes, the stripped form used here in multiple iterations to explore our internal identities and territories as a mental frame of reference. A reference for a society that is constantly changing. During these times we are faced with ever an ever-changing global climate. From the onset of the pandemic, we find ourselves contending with the illusion that we had a semblance of control our lives were interrupted and changed. This brought about the exploration of our bodies in a time and space of change; the work is an attempt to cement the transitory feeling of developing individuality amidst the context of shared struggle. 

Installation stills (Instituto Ling) 2022

The solitude of a mandatory quarantine exposed traumas that were not only individual but global. The times exposed broken systems of governance, a precarious awareness now challenging the values that have, in different forms and times steered global societal structures. Our humanity coming face to face with the fall out resulting from fragmented systems. This is happening on all fronts of the global Social agitation. While this is one of the ways of confronting the dysfunctionality rooted in our Social structures, the intensity of these times is also giving rise to a climate of over-legislation, militarization and intolerance. 

Babel (2022)

The womb is an allegory and a response to a shifting global climate and also the template of our dreams, of an imagined state of being, of our Individual resistance projecting a semblance of breaking out from the exoskeleton of collective formatting and expectations. When the figures are stripped off their skin, they are invariably stripping away the pretensions and powers of humanity; allowing room to explore our lives, our influence and expose our collective universal interconnectedness. 

Drawing on parallels of the “Tower of Babel”in Genesis; 

“and this is only the beginning of what they will do; and nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them”. 

To our modern-day, “Babel", examines ambition, the erasure of the individual in favour of the collective, the use of legislation to suppress the rights of the individual. 

By exploring the theme of Trauma, Dreams Escape, the work  also examines the construction of the individual what is called "ethical substance," which forms the basis of our existential angst, the pursuit of happiness, and the desire to correct our own self-imposed ethical dilemma. Through intentions and actions, both consciously and unconsciously, we act based on our perceived reality of this ethical substance. The work therefore serves as a mirror of the interconnectedness of our collective and shared histories.

Unsettled

Currently exhibiting work at Duende Art Projects, The exhibition, "Unsettled" is an ode to restlessness. What are humans if not always striving to become a better version of themselves? Restless souls who are invariably moving, stretching themselves – and thereby others - in an active pursuit for impalpable aspirations. This continuous chase can go hand in hand with a passionate desire to express this unsettled state. 

The exhibition closes 3 July 2022.

Installation still

An excerpt about the work by Curator, Bruno Claessens.

...In her practice Wanjiku examines the times we are living in. With ambiguous feelings, she senses the world is in a phase of self-combustion. Moved by social and political situations, both on a local as global level, her works interrogate their unsettling impact on our lives. Her paintings are not political, but reflect on our journey as human beings, and how we are forced to constantly adapt to navigate our social spaces. Wanjiku’s paintings scrutinize the human experience, functioning as a mirror of who we are.

With her paintings, Wanjiku hopes we can return to our true selves, bringing back the completeness that we are searching for. Her work reflects this pursuit for meaning, to make sense of our constantly altering realities.

Exhibition Installation stills

Exploring the ‘condition humaine’, Wanjiku displays who we are as human beings, in our genuine entirety. While being masters of our own destiny, she visualizes the duality of our inner selves, constantly battling between choices in a process of doubt while trying to reinvent ourselves. Wanjiku is inspired by the shared experience of the multifaceted persons we are, ever- changing and evolving. The motif of the gaping mouth, omnipresent in many of her paintings, is a metaphor for this constant and consuming search that alters us; it is an insatiable abyss. Wanjiku’s portraits deliberately have a certain abstractness, not wanting to portray identifiable persons so they can function as a mirror to each. In the unsettling confrontation with her works, the viewer is challenged to re-evaluate oneself.

The Strangeness of My Madness VI (2022)

With her paintings Wanjiku expresses something that’s within. She is on an elusive quest to figure out how our internal functions, trying to represent our inner selves by peeling away the layers of constituted social norms. Wanjiku goes straight to the core of our being. She bypasses the superficialities and dives into the common features of being human, like bones, blood, veins and other guts. She wants to show the backbone of our human existence. While painting the physicality of the human body, it is our mental interiors she is trying to capture.

Installation Stills

A prominent visual element in the featured works is her anatomical deconstruction of the human body, especially the ribcage, protecting the body’s essential’s guts. For Wanjiku, human bodies are a metaphor for our mental frame of reference. Her art has a larger, more universal message – as our human condition it is shared by all, notwithstanding physical differences in skin color, gender, or age. Wanjiku prefers to work with darkened hues,building up her portraits with a layering of flesh tones and shades of dark blue. The final layer is so thin it becomes see-through. Underneath, a brightness of red hues emerges from a womb like shape – suggesting re- birth. The womb suggests a reclaiming of a life and hope, filled with energy and power. Pregnant of possibilities, her paintings are metaphors for new beginnings, a rebirth within oneself. To peer into a painting of Wanjiku is to lose yourself in questions of being, of belonging and of existence.

Installation Stills

Fictions

Currently showing work at Circle Art Gallery, this exhibition curated by Don Handa, invites the viewer to consider possible relationships between one work and the next and, by extension, between each artist’s practice and the next. The title of the exhibition "Fictions" speaks to the possible connections that can emerge in the distance between artworks; and how that space can offer room for the viewer to begin thinking about thematic connections and overlaps. Fictions contends that one artwork/artist can expand the viewers thinking about another.

Recalled to Life (2020)

How, for example, do the intricate drawings of Gor Soudan, which intermingle the natural and man-made in our environment relate to the large abstract, iterative, landscape-inspired works of Tahir Karmali, or the material experiments of Maliza Kiasuwa? Where does the interiority that marks the works of Beatrice Wanjiku and Tiemar Tegene meet the narrative, observational quality of Salah Elmur and Geoffrey Mukasa’s portraits? Can the unfixed compositions of Jonathan Fraser somehow lead one to the dreamlike visions of Wanyu Brush? How do inanimate objects take on new lives in the paintings of Sujay Shah and Nahom Teklehaimanot?

The Primal and Unutterable II (2021)

Such questions – perhaps they are suggestions – lie at the heart of the exhibition. The show treats visual, thematic, and material parallels and starting points for richer, more involved interpretations of the selected works. The exhibition insists that we think of artworks as existing within a broader context of making and thinking, and not solely as discrete objects emerging from the studio.

Mount Kenya Point Lenana

Life is defined by many, many things, but mostly those moments that challenge us and reveal our mettle, summiting Mount Kenya is top most my greatest accomplishment. 

I embarked on a journey to summit Lenana peak Mount Kenya, the highest mountain in Kenya, second highest highest in Africa, after Kilimanjaro on Saturday 9th 2022. We accessed it using the Naro Moru trail a tough trail due to its steep ascend to make camp overnight at Naro Moru River Lodge/Teleki Lodge to make the final ascend the following morning. The hike is scenic with lolling clouds sweeping over the mountains, giant lobelias and moorland. 

View from the summit 16,355 ft Above Sea Level

View from the descend

I had previously done a day hike to Mackinder’s camp having started at 10.30 am and summiting at 2.30pm, four hours. Which I would imagine is quite a great start considering the altitude changes and elevation of 4300 meters or 14200 feet above sea level. As I arrived at Mackinder’s camp one of the  hikers we were with, remarked that it was just 6km to the Lenana peak summit a 500 meter gain in elevation. I recall looking back and thinking had I come prepared, I would have summited the very next day. Let’s just call this sentiment, an over estimation we were high from the mountain air. Hiking Mount Kenya is a fete that people prepare for, doing altitude hikes at many Kenyan altitude ranges. So having summited Mackinders, the rush of finishing, the feeling that one is unstoppable; turning back and heading home I was resolved to conquer this mountain.

This is me hunched over just a few meters to the summit, struggling to breathe, my heart palpitating so loud at his point I didn't think summiting was a possibility. It felt like my body was giving up on me. However much I wanted to proceed I couldn't breathe had to breathe through both my nose and mouth. I stood at this point for a good ten minutes until my heart rate became regular.

A mountain conquered, a victory realised!

The day arrived, we set out for Mackinder’s camp at 1:30pm and arrived before 6pm. The hike up the mountain scenic, we stopped every so often to take pictures and to just take in the sights. The weather was very favourable no rain, hail or snow, but nothing prepared me for the freezing winds. When we set out for the mountain, we had left the porters behind and with them our food rations and among them was our cook for the night. So you can imagine having arrived at Mackinder’s everyone was a bit famished there was not a hot meal and it was soon a dying of the light as the night set in. We asked if a fire could be lit but apparently due the thin air and the smoke from the firewood would apparently be poisonous. I think the whole idea of camping at Teleki lodge is so that the body can acclimatize during the night. 

Giant lobelias 

Waking up at 1:30am for a light breakfast we departed for peak Lenana, a 6km ascend with an elevation gain of 500 meters at 3am with nothing but our torches illuminating the way. The skies clear, stars visible, and the trail of torches lighting the way as we made our way up the mountain. Silence enveloped us save for the grunts and strained breathing as the altitude assaulted our senses; all around us the only sound audible was that of our feet as we made our ascend. The ascend gruelling and brutal, freezing winds, stopping for a minute or two for some reprieve to catch our breathe and  acclimatise to the altitude. The air thin an assault on my lungs as I struggle with my laboured breathing, my heart palpitates so loud but we trudge on until we reach the Austrian camp and rest a bit before we make the final ascend which as estimated by the guide will take us another hour. At this point my fingers, toes and mouth are numb talking is impossible and when I make an attempt it feels like I had a visit to the dentist words come out jumbled. 

We make the summit at 6am in time to view the sunrise four hours later; four hours is relatively the distance one covers walking 15km on a normal trail. Words fail in describing having succeeded to summit, but as the saying goes, “what goes up must come down”, and that was another challenge in on itself. All that mattered is that I conquered Mount Kenya!

The temperature dropping to freezing degrees, let me just say that no amount of preparation prepares you for how cold it got at night. The views though are incomparable! 

Studio News!

Happy belated new year!

I know, I know, like really? Yes. The year is still new though we carry on our days with the responsibilities of the old one. Fresh thought and new ideas growing off the previous both literally and metaphorically, finishing up projects and starting new ones. I have resumed and are back in the the studio after a small hiatus having had a dynamic year that left me feeling burnt out and in need of some rest, I am back, rejuvenated, and refreshed excited to update you and let you in on some studio news;

The year is off to an exciting start; I will be exhibiting at the Expo Chicago with Montague Contemporary. The International Exposition of Contemporary & Modern Art, that features leading international galleries alongside the highest quality platform for contemporary art and culture.

In 2022, EXPO CHICAGO will host the 9th edition in-person exposition on April 7-10, 2022

Restless in rest IV (2020)

On 26 May - 3 July 2022,  I have an upcoming group show with Duende Art Projects dubbed, “Unsettled” at Zwartzusters monastery, Antwerp, Belgium 

Unsettled” is an ode to restlessness. What are humans if not always striving to become a better version of themselves? Restless souls who are invariably moving, stretching themselves – and thereby others - in an active pursuit for impalpable aspirations. This continuous chase can go hand in hand with a passionate desire to express this unsettled state. 

Work in progress  (2022)