Beatrice Wanjiku
Beatrice Wanjiku, (b 1978) received her diploma from Nairobi’s Buruburu Institute of Fine Arts in 2000 and lives and works in Nairobi, Kenya. Her recent exhibitions include, A Wild Infection of The Wildly shaken Public Mind, Oneoff Gallery Nairobi 2021, Kesho Kutwa, The Nairobi National Museum 2021, IL Dubbio , Labiennale Venezia, Cinema, VR Expanded 2021, A Memory, OneoffGallery Nairobi, 2018, Feedback, Art, African, and the 80’s 2018-2019 Iwalewa Haus, Bayreuth, Germany, Personal Structures – “Open Borders” Venice, Italy, VOLTA NY 2017, When the Heavens Meet the Earth, The Heong Gallery at Downing College, Cambridge 2017, The OSTRALE 2015, Dresden, Germany (2015) and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, Richard Taittinger Gallery, New York, USA (2015) curated by Ugochukwu Smooth Nzewi. She is a recipient of the UNESCO Aschberg Bursary (2013); Lava Thomas and Peter Danzig Fellowship Award (2013); Robert Sterling Clarke Foundation Fellowship (2011); and Alliance Francaise’s and Goethe-Institut’s Most Promising Female Artist Award (2006). Her recent international artists’ residencies include Art OMI Ghent, New York 2018, the Iwalewa Haus Artist Residency Program, Bayreuth, Germany (2015), Djerassi Resident Artist
Program, Woodside, CA (2013), and Vermont Studio Center Program, Johnson, VT (2011).
Wanjikus distinctive canvases and works on paper constantly probe the human condition, delving into psychological issues and repeatedly questioning our reality and the space
we occupy. Always beginning from a personal perspective, informed by her environment and society’s perceptions that surround her, Wanjiku’s practice scratches away at the superficial images we project in daily life, peeling away the layers that constitute social norm and revealing haunting, abstract figures that mirror our personal, inner self. Existentialism and the shifting nature of human beings are a constant concern in her practice. She repeatedly interrogates our capacity for self-awareness and our ability to transform, offering an insight into our eternal quest to understand our realities.