Maria Firmina Dos Reis Reads To Henry Tate: Luís Gama, Donald Rodney And Isabel Braganza Confer, 2014. Oil On Canvas, 100 X 80 Cm, Courtesy Of The Artist
In his new exhibition 'Black History Painting' Kimathi Donkor continues his ongoing re-centering of black historical figures who have been ignored by mainstream western history or are victims of police and state brutality. He references and uses the tools of the genre of history painting, evoking that visual language to actively difference the canon. Donkor has been working in this way since the early 2000s, and these works can be seen as prefiguring more recent debates in both art history and wider society. In particular Donkor's way of working has a strong parallel with the academic Saidiya Hartman's idea of 'critical fabulation' a way of working that Hartman says "troubles the line between history and imagination."
The notion of critical fabulation is a strategy that produces a counter-history of black subjects who were enslaved, fought against slavery or were subject to more contemporary forms of oppression. It adds to gaps where conventional history in the form of archives or written testimonies are scarce or contested. In this way these black subjects are given a fuller agency. These are images that are rooted in whatever historical record is left but re-think the archive through imagined moments and futures. Donkor has been working in this way since the early 2000s with works that featured figures including Toussaint L'Ouverture, the leader of the Haitian Revolution against its French colonial occupiers and the Nanny of the Maroons, who lead a community of former slaves in a guerrilla war against the British authorities in Jamaica.
Central to Donkor's works is not simply re-inserting these overlooked figures into contemporary discourse, but simultaneously critiquing the art historical genre of history painting. Donkor does this by clearly nodding at that style of painting but also by very specifically referencing particular works. So for example, 'Nanny of the Maroons' Fifth Act of Mercy' (2012) (currently on view at the National Portrait Gallery) visually echoes Joshua Reynold's painting 'Jane Fleming, Later Countess of Harrington' (1778), which was a portrait of a British aristocrat whose family was involved in enslaving people in Jamaican plantations.
Donkor uses historical records, imaginative speculation and the language of history painting to suggest what a broader concept of the genre could be, one that addresses history from a rounded perspective rather than through solely a colonialist gaze. In his new exhibition at Niru Ratnam, Donkor will present two new major paintings that continue this ongoing project. He will also present one older work from 2014 as well as two major paintings that were shown at the Sharjah Biennial (2023), accompanying works on paper and a film work.
Free
Opening hours
Wednesday - Saturday, 12pm - 5pm.
Location
71-73 Great Portland Street
London, W1W 7LP
TEXT AND PICTURES, COPYRIGHT Niru Ratnam, AND THE ARTIST