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.

Much of Ng’ok’s practice has been dedicated to the study of colonialism in Africa, but this new series of works at CENTRAL FINE represent a shift in her focus to more ambiguous forms, the connections between people across geographies and temporal zones. “I think some of the elements of colonial violence and history still come back to the work, even if I’m not consciously doing that,” she says. “For me, it was more about trying to transition to the idea of: When someone passes on, where do they go? How do we say goodbye to them?” Inspired by Courbet’s A Burial at Ornans (1849-50), Ng’ok uses scale to represent the dynamics of power and the complexity of social events.

Expanding beyond the more somber, darker tones of her previous work, Ng’ok is engaging more nuanced moods and possibilities. Characterized by a light, expressive touch, Ng’ok’s paintings—mostly oil, with some acrylics in the background—are rooted in her first medium of watercolors, lending her paintings a quick effortless energy that captures the moment of application. With this debut body of work, Ng’ok is seeking a universal experience: the act of witnessing. However, what exactly is being witnessed, and who is doing it, is unclear. “I always like that ambiguity,” she says. “Of course, all our experiences are tied to who we are, where we’re from, and what we see. But someone can still understand your experience even if they’re in a different space or a different country.”

About the artist

Chemu Ng’ok (b. 1989, Nairobi, Kenya) uses painting and drawing to explore the sociopolitical, physical and psychological aspects of human relationships. She received her MFA from Rhodes University, Grahamstown in 2017 and was the recipient of the Mellon Foundation’s Visual and Performing Arts of Africa Masters Bursary in 2016. Recent solo shows include The Longing (2023) at Goodman Gallery in London; An impression that may possibly last forever (2023) at ICA Milano; An Enigma (2021) at CENTRAL FINE in Miami Beach and Still Waters Run (2022) at Matthew Brown Gallery in Los Angeles.

Recent group presentations include When We See Us: A Century of Black Figuration in Painting, at the Kunstmuseum Basel; Shadowboxing It: Painting Peripheries (2023) at CENTRAL FINE in Miami Beach, 8th Biennial of Painting: The ‘t’ is Silent (2022) at the Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens in Deurle, Belgium; Central Sounds (2022) at Luhring Augustine in New York; Fire Figure Fantasy (2022) at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami; and the New Museum Triennial Songs for Sabotage (2018) in New York.