Chemu Ng'ok Dossier 2024

Chemu Ng'ok 'The Longing'
London
01 June - 18 August 2023

Goodman Gallery presents an exhibition of new paintings by Chemu Ng’ok - a new body of work created while on residency at Gasworks earlier this year. The show occupies the first floor gallery and is Ng’ok’s first solo exhibition in the UK, following her first institutional exhibition at Fondazione ICA Milano earlier this year. 

Ng’ok works primarily in painting and drawing to investigate the personal, psychological, political and spiritual dynamics of human interactions and relationships.

EXPLORE VIEWING ROOM

Chemutai Ng'ok. 'An impression that may possibly last forever'
Curated by Chiara Nuzzi
ICA Milano
25.01.2023–18.03.2023

On the occasion of her first solo exhibition in Europe, Chemutai Ng'ok presents ten paintings and a selection of drawings specially made for the occasion, in which the artist explores the tensions inhabiting power dynamics inherent in human interaction and their psychological effects.

Trained in South Africa and specialized in painting and drawing, Chemutai Ng'ok has defined over the years an internationally oriented artistic journey strongly focused on contemporary politics in Africa, with particular attention to social issues and the long-standing legacy of colonialism. From the protests of the FeesMustFall university movement in South Africa in 2015 and 2016 to the presidential elections that shook Kenya in 2017, Ng'ok draws inspiration from experiences that have involved her first-hand to reflect on the power dynamics that innervate society.

LEARN MORE

CHEMU NG'OK. TO WITNESS
CENTRAL FINE
May 26 - July 16th, 2024

CENTRAL FINE is pleased to announce To Witness, an exhibition of a new body of work by Kenyan painter Chemu Ng’ok (b. 1989, Nairobi, Kenya). In her second solo show with the artist-run gallery in Miami Beach, Ng’ok continues her explorations of what she calls “psychological landscapes,” paintings that bridge representation and abstraction, the physical world and spiritual realms. Following last year’s individual exhibitions at Goodman Gallery in London and ICA Milano, Ng’ok is treading new ground as she pushes against figurative art as a means of representation. As the artist says of the figures in these paintings, “They are in their own worlds.”

The new works contain images of processions, collective events that commemorate liminal, transitional periods such as weddings, births, funerals, and parades. However, there is little to indicate the specific occasions, as Ng’ok abstracts the nature of these affairs and instead renders the internal dimensions of the participants. In the tradition of artists like Faith Ringgold and Chris Ofili, who use an inventive approach to Black figuration, Ng’ok uses colors other than black to represent the skin tones of her figures, complicating the expectations placed on Black and African artists. Amongst these paintings, there are tiny figures as well as giant ones, some of them green-faced, floating and disembodied.

LEARN MORE

Chemu Ng’ok 'Still waters Run'
Matthew Brown633 N La Brea Ave
February 12 – March 19, 2022

Matthew Brown is pleased to present Still waters Run, Chemu Ng’ok’s first solo exhibition in Los Angeles. The works are teeming with energy with lines appearing to drip off the surface of the paintings. Fresh tints of color create complex compositions that are open spaces for dialogue. They collapse dichotomies and offer different possibilities for interpretation. Ng’ok’s work is inspired by political and social events as well as personal experiences. The paintings fall within the context of decolonial practice, feminism, power, justice, and agency.

The exhibition’s title is arresting. It implies a simmering underneath the surface in which, at any given point, an eruption can occur. Regarding the inspiration behind the work, Ng’ok states, “I was searching for justice— attempting to depict it in the form of a painting. But it proved elusive. I ended up depicting institutions that attempt to carry out a justice that is not always guaranteed.” The fourteen paintings included in the exhibition are populated with soldiers, politicians, lawyers, and judges, often alongside a faceless, anonymous public that bears witness to their dealings. Each painting presents a kind of power play, in which authority figures assert their dominion. Interested in the symbolic and abstract nature of power, Ng’ok has devised a unique, pictorial language that makes visible the arcane institutional structures and hidden psychological conflicts that govern contemporary life.

LEARN MORE

CHEMU NG'OK, 'AN ENIGMA'
October 24th-November 24th, 2021. Opening: October 24th 5-7 pm.  
Central Fine, Miami

The title of this presentation, might allude to everything: The enigma of art, of violence, of behaviors, of the subconscious, etc. We know that when antagonistic forces intersect the body, pain reveals a type of speech that arises from oppression.  In Chemu Ng’ok’s work there’s a dialectical engagement with power through an internal source that acts and responds to the frictions that aim to subjugate it. When re-presenting oppression, it is possible to extract the material that becomes productive despite the calcification of trauma, through an exegesis of brushstrokes, lines, lines of thoughts, etc. What follows, are notes written by Chemu Ng’ok. 

LEARN MORE