Michael Armitage

The paintings and drawings of Kenyan-British artist Michael Armitage (b. 1984) give shape to real and imagined histories, constructing nuanced, deeply rooted impressions of the myriad sociopolitical and cultural contexts that affect contemporary daily life in the region. Executed in a distinctive lush palette, these sweeping compositions vividly combine visual references to recent events, the art-historical canon, the artist’s East African artistic milieu, and his own memories, while also generating space for the spiritual and the symbolic. Using painting to excavate, process, and reappraise these sources, Armitage’s practice subtly collapses traditional formal considerations, resulting in lyrical tableaux that thrive on the enigmatic slippage of motif and meaning.

Armitage was born in Nairobi, Kenya, and currently lives and works in Nairobi and London. He received his BFA from Slade School of Art, London, in 2007, and a Postgraduate diploma from the Royal Academy Schools, London, in 2010. The artist was the recipient of the Ruth Baumgarte Art Award in 2020, and in 2021, he was elected a Royal Academician of Painting by the Royal Academy of Art, London.

In 2023, Michael Armitage: Pathos and the Twilight of the Idle, a solo presentation of the artist’s work, was on view at Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria. Michael Armitage: You, Who Are Still Alive, was on view at Kunsthalle Basel in 2022. In the same year, a solo presentation of the artist’s work curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist was on view at Calcografía Nacional, Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, Madrid. In 2021, Michael Armitage: Account of an Illiterate Man was presented by Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen. The solo exhibition Michael Armitage: Paradise Edict debuted in 2020 at Haus der Kunst, Munich, and traveled to the Royal Academy of Arts, London, in 2021.

Other monographic exhibitions have taken place at prominent venues internationally, such as the Norval Foundation, Cape Town (2020); Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, Italy (2019); Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney (2019); The Museum of Modern Art, New York, in collaboration with The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York (2019); South London Gallery (2017); Turner Contemporary, Margate, England (2017); and the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, California (2016).

Work by the artist was included in Drawing in the Continuous Present, a 2022 group exhibition at The Drawing Center, New York. Armitage’s work was included in the group exhibition British Art Show 9, organized by Hayward Gallery Touring, London, which traveled to numerous venues in the United Kingdom in 2021–2022. In 2019, the artist participated in the 58th Venice Biennale.

In 2020, Armitage founded the Nairobi Contemporary Art Institute (NCAI) to promote art by practitioners in East Africa. The groundbreaking nonprofit arts venue hosts exhibitions, curatorial research residencies, libraries and archives, as well as other educational initiatives that enrich the discourse on contemporary creative practices in the region. In the future, NCAI has plans to develop a postgraduate fine arts program, among other wide-reaching resources.

NCAI also collaborates with writers and artists from East Africa to publish original commissioned essays, interviews, articles, and reports. NCAI's robust publications and artists books offer insight, research, and thought leadership that underscores its commitment to documentation of the artists’ creativity. David Zwirner Books proudly supports and distributes the NCAI titles Mwili, Akili Na Roho / Body, Mind, and Spirit and I Hope So: Sane Wadu internationally.

Armitage’s works are represented in distinguished public collections worldwide, including the Art Institute of Chicago; Astrup Fearnley Museet, Oslo; Dallas Museum of Art; Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, Italy; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh; Norval Foundation, Cape Town; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; and the Tate, United Kingdom.