Jacob Barua (Kenyan, born 1967)
Good Fences Make For Good Neighbours, 2014
Signed ‘Jacob Barua 2014’ (lower left)
Edition 1/5 photographic print
65 x 100 cm
Ksh 110,000-160,000
(US $ 1,000-1,455)
Sold Ksh 164,360
Provenance: direct from the artist
Jacob Barua’s photography owes its specific, highly aesthetic sensibility to his film background, often resulting in extensive series’. He works exclusively on film negative, a medium that gives his photographs a timeless quality. Most of his work is in colour and never involves Photoshopping.
To a large extent his photography draws its inspiration from the city of Nairobi, which he finds enthralling.
Barua graduated in 1989 from the University of Warwick in the UK, and went on to study at the world renowned National Film, TV and Theatre School in Lodz, Poland. He also trained at the Deutche Welle Academy in Berlin.
Barua has held numerous exhibitions, including in Austria, Germany, Italy and Poland. Amongst these exhibitions were series such as Light and Form, Nairobi – A Utopia in the Eye of the Beholder, Tunnel Vision. His most elegiac collection of black and white photography is Blacksmiths of their own Fate. Many of his pieces are in international private collections.