Beatrice Wanjiku

Beatrice Wanjiku (born 1978) is a Kenyan visual and abstract artist. Quotes I always had the need to understand how things work when I graduated I did not know who I was But who am I as a painter?” I asked myself When my mom fell ill, it was then that my work changed. My work lost color. I could not see the beauty in color. The context of my work had totally shifted. I was trying to express the emotions, the things that we hide because I realize that faces become masks. People are not allowed to express what they feel The only way to grieve is through my work Being married and having kids is the pinnacle of success especially in an African setting. When you stop caring how people look at you and at your work, you are freer I love the human form. It is central to my work I am very content with my life but the world is not content with who I am because I don’t follow a typical idea of who I should be I have a sense of peace when I look at my paintings When you think about ourselves as human beings, we see ourselves as finite. We die but I feel our spirit lives on. You live and grieve beyond the canvas. When I constrain my figures within the canvas I feel like my figures are almost not breathing People ask me why do I decapitate my characters. We are never present in our lives. We are almost mechanical I say to people: If you want pretty pictures, I don’t know how to do that anymore. Beauty is so temporary There is loneliness when you break the rules of the community My work transformed because I spoke of the human condition. I am painting what is very real to me Interview with Kenyan artist Beatrice Wanjiku 3 November 2016 Although I am the point of origin of my work, and although of course it all starts with me and my experience, it is not just about me. It is about us, about people, all of us going through similar experiences with different ways of expressing ourselves When you see these individuals with their mouths wide open, please remember that elation and pain sometimes bear the same expression. For a while I have been studying the human predicament, the thin line that exists between empathy and the lack of compassion Beatrice Wanjiku 1 November 2015 For me, human bodies are a metaphor for mental frames of reference BEATRICE & OKELLO BOTH HAVE ONE OFF SHOWS TWO ACCLAIMED KENYAN ARTISTS AT ONE OFF 6 September 2021 External links Category:1978 births Category:Living people Category:Artists from Kenya Category:Women artists Category:Women from Kenya Category:Women born in the 1970s