Christina Kimeze

Unusual surface materials form an important part of Christina Kimeze’s practice, which she uses to explore how texture and luminosity help to investigate themes of interiority, oneness and belonging. Frequently working on suede mat board, Kimeze combines dry chalks, oil pastel and wet paints, applying, crushing and crunching them on the surfaces. In both her paintings and works on paper, Kimeze lends form to the rich quietude of our internal lives, in works that capture feelings and sensations born of memory and found through reflection. 

Kimeze’s paintings attain a completeness that transcends any singular narrative. Her female protagonists, often depicted within a framework of richly colored foliage, are characterized by a stillness which the artist describes as ‘an active state and full of possibility.’ This idea of openness, not only to interpretation, but to potential, is rooted in the writings of Kevin Quashie, specifically ‘The Sovereignty of Quiet: Beyond Resistance in Black Culture,’ (2012) from which many of the works in the exhibition take their titles.