Kaloki Nyamai draws heavily on the stories of the Kamba people, a Bantu ethnic group who predominantly live in the area of Kenya stretching from Nairobi to Tsavo in the former Eastern Province of Kenya. Nyamai explores how identity and the perception of the self is inflected by the past, present, and future. He works with multiple media, layering each work with rich textures that reveal various figures and abstract forms. Nyamai turns to these textured, layered interpretations of the self and time as an antidote to the singular narrative of History that is taught as the definitive account of Kenya and its people. These works speak to daily life, past events, what justice has come to mean, and the political faultlines of postcolonial Kenya.
James Cohan Gallery based in New York, USA in collaboration with Barbara Thumm Gallery in Berlin, Germany is delighted to announce the representation of the Kenyan painter Nyamai whose work comments on his own lived experience as well as stories that he has been entrusted with by his grandmother and other ancestors as his work reflects their practices. This way he gets to pass on tales from one generation to another to produce an understanding of history that is complex, plural, and contradictory. His art often depicts fragments of forms that must be pieced together slowly. The viewer is called on to search through and make connections between forms, which mimics the artist’s creative process as well as how one would sift through and make meaning of the many histories storytelling produces.
Nyamai will have his debut solo exhibition with James Cohen in March 2024. He has exhibited at the the Kenyan Pavilion as part of the ‘Exercise in Conversation’ show where he formed part of a group of artists who explored relationships and dynamics between participants in a conversation, the interchanging roles of both talker and listener, and how this complex relationship affects, influences and occupies the space of a story, of history and of pedagogy. He has exhibited at the Stellenbosch Triennale in Stellenbosch, South Africa as part of the exhibition ‘Tomorrow There Will Be More of US’ where the curator of the exhibition sought to find work that would work to overcome the apartheid and slave trade past of Stellenbosch, even if it meant offending Stellenbosch’s white haute bourgeoisie. He has also exhibited at the Ostrale Biennale in Dresden, Germany and at the Oriel Plas Glyn Y Weddw Gallery as part of the ‘Letters from the Other Side’ exhibition.
