A personal exploration into past events both real and dream. The haze of nostalgia clouding my memory. Along with working from photographs, which offer a clear glimpse back, to lived experiences.
This project has shown my inability to let go of the past, however, it has also allowed me to come to terms with events.
All the images used throughout this project I have taken or found, they are all from my camera roll. I began to go through them looking back on past experiences. These images all tell a story, I took them, saved them for a reason, thinking they must have importance. The power of a photo is it can transport you back to a single moment, you see it with clarity and remember how you felt.
I want to combine images that could never exist in reality, I want to create spaces that include aspects from Kenya, Denmark, and Scotland, all the paces I inhabit. I also want to paint memories that are so striking I cannot forget, these are photographs in my memory, both traumatic and happy. I began working to make images more interesting I followed on from Peter Doig and began adding color and drawing back into the. I have become increasingly interested in mono printing and using it as a way to start the process.
This black and white image is a large inspiration to this project, I love how it frames the figures, the multiple picture planes it creates, and the immediate depth.
I draw images on tracing paper to begin composition. It allows me to place different objects within a composition and play with color. As seen with the Masai women that I’ve placed against bright colors.
I wanted to work within a colour scheme, to allow my paintings to connect as I new I wanted to produce a collection of works. The colours have been chosen as they relate to places and feelings, light pink of my childhood, dark reds the colour of Kenyan Murom soil and that of the red Danish summer houses, light green – freshly cut grass, dark teal the shadows under the trees, warm yellow the feeling of sunshine, light blue the sky on a clear day and orange the colour of happiness.
I began my painting on a pre painted surface, fabric from a previous project that I had mono printed shadows of organic shapes; trees, flowers, this pre painted surface meant I already had a starting point and a guide to the composition
‘Through the palms, across the water’
Acrylic on raw canvas, 50 x 50 cm
This is a memory, the sun rising through the palms, across the water, the first light after darkness and your eyes still adjusting from seeing mono-chromatically, the two colours now are peachy orange and dark green. I can hear the waves rolling in and the palm fronds swaying, I can smell the ocean salt in the air. This is a happy memory that I cant forget. Painting it I allowed my self to indulge in the fluidity.
I like how easy this image is…
When painting it I referred to this image below taken in Watamu a coastal town of Kenya. Displaying it on this wall as shadows from the trees cascade on to it adds to the seduction of it.
£400 (sold)
‘Underneith the shadows’
Acrylic on canvas, 20 x 30 cm
I grew up being scared of the dark as you could never fully see what was hiding in the shadows, here I place images that are happy yet they become slightly disturbing within this setting. Joshua Raz influences me here as I use a limited colour and tonal pallet. His painting ‘The Atrophy Experience’ 2016, oil on canvas is shown top right.
I like how this image required you too really look, its not obvious, it doesn’t stand out on the wall but when you look close enough you see the excitement within. I hung this painting next to ‘Sophie swinging’ as they have similar creeping foliage and colours, I really like this exchange.
The image of me eating candy floss in the foreground is a personal favorite, something so childish enjoyed by an adult. It bought me a lot of happiness, but when places in this composition seem so dark, it’s confusing but in a good way.
£200
‘Ripples’
Acrylic on linen, 30 x 30 cm
This began with painting an orange square on the printed linen. I really enjoyed flowing with the process here, letting one decision flow on to the next and the next, first I added the boat, is seamed fitting, then my father swimming in the water beyond, then the palm tree, then the rounded leafs at the top inspired by this photo I took of a mango tree in the dark and then I was left with a space in the bottom right corner and it called for large ripples.
An action in water creates ripples they start small and grow, just like this composition.
I love this colour pallet, its similar to ‘ through the palms, across the water’ it alludes of the beach, with an element of calm being created, yet as the same time the figure in the water could be drowning. This tension of serenity and disruption is one that follows through this whole series.
£200 (sold)
‘Yellow Canoe’
Acrylic on wood, and vanished 30 x 20 cm
Largely inspired by Peter Doig this painting is from a photograph of my parents in a canoe. With specific interest in this photo of yellow light on water. I let the fluidity of the paint guide this painting, allowing bleeds and areas of interest as the water gathered on the surface of the wood. The roundness of the foliage of the top became part of this series and I really enjoyed their simplicity.I vanished the final painting as I wanted it to feel like a printed photograph with that specific shine.
£200 (sold)
‘ Boys on a donkey, disapproving mothers on foot ’
Acrylic on linen, 30 x 30 cm
I wanted to keep this simple, the pre painted linen was already intriguing, a added the warm yellow square and red lines, but it needed something. I loved this image of two young boys ridding a donkey. I took this photo in Lamu, an island town off the coast of Kenya, it has no cars just donkeys, the community is intimate and connected.
There are some very busy painting in this series and I wanted to balance that with this.
I don’t want to give the figures distinct faces, I don’t think its needed. Instead I like the ambiguity.
£200 (sold)
‘Gossips’
Acrylic on linen. 30 cm x 30 cm.
This space cannot exist in reality, only in my experiences. It is an accumulation of images. I wanted to create energy and movement in this piece. The Samburu warriors are Kenyan, the geese scottish and the rollercoaster Danish, images quintesential to me of the countries I am from. The colours are youthful and bright, alluding to happiness. I have only used tropical foliage as it creates serenity and tranquility. The stripes on the left wall are bars, representing my gated life in Kenya.
£200
‘ Privilege’
Acrylic on wood with varnish finish, 30 x 20 cm
I am privileged, I lived a very sheltered privileged childhood. Of course I dint really know it at the time, it was just normal. However now I see how lucky I was. There is guilt here, that I had an ‘Ayah’ ( the Swahili word for nanny and maid), I took a mother away from her kids so that she could help raise me.
Tatu was her name and here she is with me and a goat around my shoulders as we stand in her garden.
I set the image within this colorful frame, as it relates to childish colours, it also adds the idea that I’m looking in to it, looking in with a grater understanding and appreciation. Subtle light flows through the trees. This is idyllic, this is my childhood of privilege.
£200
‘ Post election violence, 2007 ‘
Acrylic on wood, finished with vanish, 20 x 30 cm
In 2007, after the presidential election, Kenya experienced violent clashes between supporters of the two candidates. As a young child, we drove through riots to buy food.
Though kept safe by a police escort, I was scared, I now know my fear cannot be compared to theirs.
My parents told us to shelter low in the car from potential bullets or shrapnel. People banged on the car. I remember looking back at where we had come from. The scene of tires on fire at a burning petrol station, figures running into the smoke.
Michael Armitage, a Kenyan, paints similar scenes as can be seen at right. The pho
to I worked from was taken by Boniface Mwangi, a photojournalist who became an activist in response to what he saw in 2007.
I began by mono-printing, and then painted into it.
£200
‘Sophie Swinging‘
Acrylic on linen, 40 cm x 40 cm.
I wanted to experiment creating a busy and energetic scene full of vibrant colour, featuring several small scenes within the image. The planes of colours again represent bars, and the darker green, their shadows. The foliage in the foreground is consuming, reaching out to the viewer. The swinging girl is my cousin in Scotland, but she is swi
nging above a Kenyan village, again mixing my cultures. She seems poised to leap off into the foliage below, which comes towards the viewer.
£200
Presentation of resolved series
I wanted to create an open air gallery, with the shadows falling on the paintings and grass on the ground. I want my works to be seen outside a gallery and instead exist within spaces one would not normally see art. I hope to explore this concept further and bring art to people making It more inclusive.
