Michael Armitage: Pathos of the Twilight and the Idle

Michael Armitage’s pictures are loaded with stories and experiences. The British-Kenyan painter makes history paintings from the perspective of the present. They address political events in Kenya as much as they engage with Paul Gauguin’s tropical visions, Francisco de Goya’s images of atrocity and misery, and influences from East African art. How do you respond to the colonial gaze? Armitage’s drawings and paintings offer a possible answer. His pictures depict over-life-size images of people and immense panoramas—uneasy scenarios in fascinating colors. Earth tones and neon shades, pink and violet are typical. Death, dream states, and trauma permeate the works, but so do questions of faith and political resistance. The image carrier is a special feature. Armitage uses “Lubugo” as a painting ground—a material traditionally made from the bark of the Ugandan fig tree, which is burned, beaten smooth, and stitched together into a supple, stretchable cloth.

The exhibition Michael Armitage: Pathos and the Twilight of the Idle at Kunsthaus Bregenz is the first comprehensive presentation of the British-Kenyan painter’s work in Austria.

Biography
Michael Armitage (b. 1984, Nairobi) lives in Nairobi and in Bali. In 2020 he founded the Nairobi Contemporary Art Institute (NCAI)—a non-profit organization dedicated to providing space for art in Nairobi and promoting and supporting contemporary art in East Africa.