Afroway Newsletter: Receive our picks weekly to your inbox!

Demo

  • Home
  • Culture
  • Artists Souad Rassoul and Salah Elmur Joint Show In Kenya
Wednesday, 24 August 2016 20:29

Kenyan artist Jackie Karuti exhibition from the ‘Unknown Worlds’

Written by Musungu Okach
Rate this item
(0 votes)
Jackie Karuti Jackie Karuti thirdroomstudios.com

 

The art bug has indeed caught Kenya, a series of exhibition are put up for the art lovers in Nairobi on daily basis, giving an opportunity to some of the most talented artists the East African nation has produced to showcase their work.

Friday July 8, an exhibition opened at Goethe Institut in Nairobi dubbed ‘There are worlds out there they never told you about’. The unique exhibition hosted by the phenomenal Jackie Karuti. According to Goethe institut, ‘the exhibition elaborately introduces the audience to her imagined worlds seemingly set in a galactic and underwater universe’.

The artist displays some of her most impressive pieces which are a collection of drawings, installations, videos, animations and text which depicts the outer space, imaginings about the various features of the universe and life in the ocean.

The exhibition presents a mythical experience based on some tales about how underwater civilization descended from the slaves who were thrown overboard during the journeys from Africa to America. Karuti paints an imaginary world where the souls go and find life, their new home. Like Leonardo Da Vinci, she moves within subjects with ease. The labyrinth for instance represented the dark, the gothic and the suicidal with themes of death and darkness.

Jackie’s work poses a brutal enigma for any art lover with a keen eye for consistency within an artist’s work. She has a rare and unique creativity that sends art enthusiasts chasing for appropriate adjective to describe her work. The young artist’s incredible works such as labyrinth, exhibited in 2015 have caught the eye of one of Kenya’s renowned art critic and Business Daily writer Margareta wa Gacheru among others.

Karuti was born in Nairobi her works at Kuona Trust Art Centre include installations, paintings and performance. She has had several art residence one of which was at The Bag Factory in Johannesburg South Africa. also showcased her art in other places such as Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Sweden, The Netherlands, Uganda, the UK and the US.


Awards: Young Artist Award’ by the YAA foundation in Amsterdam in 2015 and the ‘Moving Africa’ travel grant by the Goethe Institut in 2014. In 2016 she was among the top ten finalists in the Barclays La’telier Competition, has been nominated twice for the Künstlerhaus Bethanien international studio program in Berlin and was shortlisted for the 2015 Africa Centre A.I.R program.

Young and vibrant, Jackie represents a group of young Kenyan women who have thrown caution to the wind so as to thrive and leave a mark on the art scene.

Her ongoing exhibition at Goethe Institut runs until July 26

 

Read 71 times
Tweet