Agnes Waruguru

22nd Sesc_VideoBrasil Biennial

Waruguru will be Patricipating in the 22nd edition of Videobrasil Biennial in São Paulo. She is producing new works in Boiçucanga, Brasil follow the link below for more information.

Announcement to Participate in the 22nd edition of VideoBrasil in São Paulo. 

Nomination of de Volkskrant Beeldende Kunst Prijs 2022

Read more about the nomination 

Agnes was Nominated by Hester Alberdingk thijm below is the speech Hester gave at the opening ceremony. 

In the spring of this year, I set out for the Rijksakademie, full of anticipation, to view the work of 46
young artists from all over the world. Up and down flights of stairs, along the long corridors from
studio to studio I went.
Agnes Waruguru’s studio was like an oasis. A studio like a house welcoming you, the fragrance of
flowers and memories that immediately make you think ‘are those mine?’ and ‘where was that
again?’ Old bedsheets, coloured bowls, small pieces of embroidery, clippings, personal things from
home; for Agnes, home is Kenya.
Big abstract paintings, small drawings and collages; some were moving gracefully through the air,
suspended on a thread. Light and airy, dream-like, but also very present and strong.
Agnes is conscious of her contemporary practice as an artist; as a painter, she works in a
performative way. Since Cézanne, painting is no longer a noun. It is a verb, an action, a
performance, through which it draws our attention back to the medium and the possibilities; with
colour, with organic materials such as plants and petals, beads and other non-classical materials.
Spatially, Agnes’s installation here in this room (or perhaps ‘space’ or ‘gallery’, as appropriate)
embraces us, hugs us and protects us.
In the semi-circular shape, we are an integral part of the work; we ourselves are the beating heart.
We don’t see the whole work, but we do experience it. We look through it, the fabric filters the
outside world, just as our gaze does.
Agnes is not afraid of beauty, which is a political stance nowadays, a feminine strength to
emphasise.
Above all, her choice of a performative spatial installation shows how the medium of painting is once
again taking up an important place in contemporary art. The work engages in a dialogue with all
other forms of conventional aesthetics in contemporary art, without her using a technique that is
unfamiliar in art history.
Extended painting, so that you become aware of your body; you are within the artwork’s space and,
at the same time, you cannot see the work in its entirety, but you can experience it.
The manner in which she deploys the medium of collage in fact also goes back to the core of
modernism. But more than anything else, the scent, the aroma, the wilted flowers, the sensation of
time that the work evokes makes it so much better than the search for lost time. Without placing
herself centrally in her work, Agnes allows you to experience the passage of time, evoked by the
material she uses that converges with a living organism (the viewer), with a more sensory and
spatial experience.
The use of fabrics, pigments and flowers offers beauty and solace; it gives a feeling of coming home
and grounding. Choosing nature, flowers and plants implies, in addition to the sense of inevitable
decay, the longing for growth and flowering!
As I have said, the work evokes memories, memories of family and the landscape of Agnes’s youth.
She takes what is purely personal and makes it collective.
Her work touches upon current and social topics, such as the importance of tradition and family
lineage, what we have in common and, based on that, nature and identity. But she does it in a way
that forges connections, conveying messages that we in the West need, that we have lost in our
individualism.
Returning to my personal experience in her studio at the Rijksakademie: for me, the work evoked
Hope, above all!
As the writer, feminist and activist, bell hooks, expressed it so aptly: “Hope is essential to any
political struggle for radical change when the overall social climate promotes disillusionment and
despair.”
We need HOPE. The work of Agnes Waruguru gives us that and so much more!

All words are property of Hester Alberdingk thijm