Beatrice Wanjiku (Kenyan, born 1978)
Retrospect, 2009
Signed ‘Beatrice Wanjiku’ (lower middle)
Mixed medium on canvas
87.5 x 61cm
Ksh 270,000-310,000
US$ 3,070-3,525
Sold Ksh 446,120
Provenance: Desai collection
Beatrice Wanjiku lives and works in Nairobi. In 2000, she received a diploma from the Buru Buru Institute of Fine Arts in Nairobi and has quickly become a successful artist on the Kenyan contemporary art scene. Her artwork has been exhibited in the UK and in the USA; she has attended art residencies in Vermont and San Francisco, Jordan and Zambia.
Wanjiku won an award through the Goethe Institut’s Moving Africa Fund to visit the 2012 Dak’Art Biennale. In May 2013. Her work sold at the Bonham’s, Africa Now, charity auction event in London; her work is in many local and international collections.
Wanjiku explores themes of existentialism, the human capacity for consciousness, questions of mortality and immortality and the facades or defence mechanisms we use to protect ourselves. She employs many different materials including x-ray sheets, letters and travel documents.