Nyokabi Kimari (they/them) is a 22-year-old visual artist born and based in Nairobi. Their work explores the depths of African spirituality in a postmodern world, the relationship between the seen and the unseen forces that dictate our daily lives. They...
Read MoreNyokabi Kimari (they/them) is a 22-year-old visual artist born and based in Nairobi. Their work explores the depths of African spirituality in a postmodern world, the relationship between the seen and the unseen forces that dictate our daily lives. They operate by frustrating expectations of sexuality and body imagery and exploring these topics in a surreal manner. Focusing on mental health and the relationship between that and spirituality is a great theme in their work. They have been a part of exhibitions, the most recent one being at Kioko gallery from December 2019 to January 2020, before that they exhibited at Addis Alem art café in early 2019. Most of their inspirations come from nature and their dreams. They have very vivid dreams and use the occurrences to create new worlds and beings in their art. Their main mediums of creating art are oil paintings, digital art, and are most recently venturing into film and textiles.
They use humanoid figures to explore and question the gender binary while still sticking to the main themes of their work. Their work expresses the solace they find in spiritual practices that make space for their fluid and queer being. The subjects in their work are different expressions of themselves and showing that no one is limited to being only one thing, again questioning the ridiculous gender binary. Their work shows the relationship they have with the ethereal beings that guide and protect them and how accepting and loving they are. It shows the acceptance that they feel in the spiritual realm, where they can be as queer and gender fluid as they are and still feel loved, protected and guided, as opposed to the reality of post colonized Africa.
