VESSELS: CONSTELLATIONS & SEDIMENTS IV

Peterson Kamwathi

 

17 May - 16 June 2018​

50 Golborne, 50 Golborne Road, London, W10 5PR

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ARTLabAfrica is delighted to announce Vessels: Constellations & Sediments IV, a solo exhibition by Kenyan artist Peterson Kamwathi opening on Friday 18 May at 50 Golborne Road, London, W10 and running until 16 June 2018.

 

Born in 1980 in Nairobi, Peterson Kamwathi is part of a generation of young East African artists whose work is focused on exploring topics both deeply rooted in Africa’s cultural background and engaged with global contemporary issues. One of the most celebrated artists hailing from East Africa who still lives and works on the continent, Kamwathi represented Kenya at the 2017 Venice Biennale.

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Kamwathi’s highly codified, symbolic, conceptual works create encapsulated visual archives by exploring themes in series through the abstracted depiction of the human figure.

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The structure and anatomy of recent mass migration is at the core of his work in this exhibition. Exploring the structures that instigate and emerge from collective human shifts, Vessels looks at containment as a way of giving form to but also restricting and suppressing our collective needs and aspirations. From the physical vessel – a shipping container, a map, a flag – to the realm of collective ideologies, governance, human rights, commerce and history, these works use the ideal of the vessel as a physical object that embodies a collective desire to move and push towards political, personal or economic shifts. Each of the drawings in this show represents existing, emerging and vestiges of structures, which have become an embedded part of the human migration story. 

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This will be the second solo show of Peterson Kamwathi in London. Peterson has exhibited in several countries across the Americas, Africa and Europe.