Kenyan-British artist Michael Armitage painted Curfew after a violent flare-up in Mombasa, Kenya, during the early days of the pandemic. One art critic calls it a 'modern masterpiece.'
was inspired by an attack on ferry passengers by paramilitary police in Nairobi. The painting hangs in the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
The painting is as dazzling as it is unsettling, not only by virtue of its monumental size but also its boisterous colors and panoramic view of figures in motion. As your gaze goes from left to right, you see a mass of people, many in white face masks, surging forward; bodies and angry faces hurtling through the air; an enraged, open-mouthed, disembodied face; reddish coral-colored whorls that look like angry, bloody whips.
Born in Nairobi in 1984, Armitage studied at the Slade School of Fine Art and the Royal Academy Schools in London. His work is known for its diverse influences from African art, Western art and current political and social events. Armitage paints oncloth, which is made from fig-tree bark, in part to ground his work in East African history. His widely acclaimed work has been exhibited in museums and galleries in Europe, Africa, Australia and the United States.
I was looking for a material that would locate the paintings' subjects in East Africa. I had been experimenting for a couple years before I came across some place mats and coasters made out of bark cloth, what I would later find to beI became even more interested in the cloth as this repurposing for the tourism trade – and total loss of cultural meaning – seemed to echo much of the changes and pressures on traditional cultures as the region evolves.
In the past when I had tried to experiment with alternatives to canvas I frequently came into the issue of the material being too physically or visually prominent where it could potentially come across as overly affected. The surface would dominate the painting.
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