Unfaded Times II: Buluu (Blue) Shadows by Jimmy Kitheka: Online Solo Exhibition

AKKA Project presents a new online exhibition, only focusing on the Kenyan artist Jimmy Kitheka.

 

Jimmy Kitheka is a young artist which narrates his childhood through his oil paintings.

His works allow us to travel back in time, into the stories told by his grandfather and father. Stories that retrace the life of Nairobi in the 60s, 70s and 80s.

“I try to reimagine myself living in that time through my paintings. Some ideas came from the dreams that I have of me experiencing the same adventures they had “back in the days”, says Jimmy.

The smells of objects in the family home, the old photographs in the albums; the vinyl collections of his father’s jazz music, the hip-hop songs recorded on audiotapes, and videotape films from the 80s are the means through which Jimmy goes back in time.

For Jimmy, the intense smell of oil colors on his palette and brushes impregnates the canvas of those nostalgic memories and sensory experiences.
Through the use of retro colors, like dark blue or buluuu in Swahili, the artist manages to transfigure in his works scenarios coming from the fermented history of Nairobi.
His techniques and materials allow him to generate blurred representations and visions from the past, full of shadows and symbolic references.

The realistic care of the contours, the attention to the materials placed on the canvas, recreate a magical atmosphere, which leads the observer into another dimension. Projecting us in filmic scenes from the 60s, 70s and 80s.

Jimmy is a painter who travels through time by daydreaming.