South, London
Christina Kimeze
Between Wood and Wheel
South London GalleryDiscover the radiant, textured paintings of Christina Kimeze at the South London Gallery, at her first solo exhibition in the UK. Kimeze's work often depicts lone female figures, based on her friends, family, and sometimes herself. The people are immersed in mysterious dreamlike scenes, with plants, arched doorways or spiral staircases. She explores themes of interiority, belonging and ideas of home, taking references from Black, feminist 20th-century writers and her memories of visiting her father's home country of Uganda. At the SLG, new paintings originally inspired by the resurgent popularity of roller skating in Black communities in London and beyond explore broader ideas around movement, flight and freedom. These expressive works evoke sensations of the body moving through space, and how those feelings might be conjured in the mind's eye. Unusual surface materials are an important part of Kimeze's practice. Her paintings have a soft, velvet-like texture created using dry chalk, oil pastel and wet paint applied to suede matboard, paper and canvas. In the Fire Station galleries other new paintings and works on paper are shown alongside a newly commissioned tapestry made by Dovecot Studios in Edinburgh. The exhibition is accompanied by an illustrated catalogue. Featuring an essay by curator and writer Ekow Eshun, an essay by Eleanor Nairne, The Keith L. and Katherine Sachs Curator for Modern and Contemporary Art and Head of Department at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and a conversation with the artist and Alayo Akinkugbe, writer, art historian and founder of @ABlackHistoryOfArt.