An Enlivening Conversation with Kemi Onabule
Photo Credit: Bridie O'Sullivan
Kemi Onabule is a painter and printmaker who lives and works in London. Since graduating from her BA in Fine Art Painting at Wimbledon College Of Art in 2016, she has been included in the Hix Award 2017 and the Ingram Young Artist Award 2017 and recently had her debut Solo Show: ‘Arrival On The Beach’ 2020 at Guts Gallery. She subsequently had her debut in-person solo show at Sim Smith Gallery in the autumn of 2022. In her work, she explores the human relationship to nature and its changing role in our lives, our effect on it, and the colonial histories that are intertwined with our current ecological predicament.
She is influenced by her Greek, English, and Nigerian heritages and their ancient cultures. She takes aesthetic and symbolic aspects from each to create a visual language that moves across the various mediums she uses.
UZOMAH: The title of your current exhibition with Night Gallery, a line from Ernest Hemingway's 1964 memoir A Moveable Feast, holds a secret that your painting allows one to see. What does the statement by Hemingway, "When spring came, even the false spring, there were no problems except where to be happiest," mean to you?
KEMI: Hemingway draws attention to his inner world by referencing the natural world. His acknowledgment of these environmental changes and their effect on the psyche interested me. The instability of the weather and increasingly extreme climate events—such as wildfires, floods, and fluctuating temperatures—have heightened the panic around our possible future. Through this series of paintings, I try to reconnect the figure, who I see as a kind of avatar for the viewer, to the landscape. The rivers, trees, and mountains contain and hold these characters as they go about their lives.
U: What was the selection process for paintings for your exhibition with Night Gallery? Was it any different from previous exhibitions?
K: This will be my second solo show of the year. I mention this because, for the first time in my career, I’ve been working in a continuous flow with few interruptions. I felt a sense of momentum and self-possession when I was in the studio, making the works for False Spring. It was great to be fully aware of my desired outcomes.
I usually make more paintings than necessary. Having a range of works to curate and choose from gives me flexibility. One can build a narrative from there.
False Spring, 2024 oil on canvas 66 7/8 x 51 1/8 in (170 x 130 cm)
U: Can you further unveil how art inspires literature and how literature inspires art in your work?
K: I find myself more and more drawn to literature and poetry as a source for the work. There is a transmutation of energy and understanding that gives the paintings a deeper and more subtle feeling than when I use visual stimuli. It makes my mind work harder, so to speak. I am a deeply distracted person and writing and reading often calm me before the act of painting.
Having access to others' experiences and inner worlds through literature also gives you space to transport yourself beyond the mundanity of everyday life.
U: How do you uniquely blend new and old traditions of painting in your work? Can you explain the depths in which you go to reach new and innovative creative ideas through your painting?
K: I find it hard to approach art and artists in a linear manner in terms of movements and styles. In every era, there are people who create and envisage, atypically, the times they live in. If I like someone’s work, it doesn't matter when or where the work was made.
In the studio, one needs material that can come from anywhere at any time. My desire to find a space in the world where I feel comfortable and at peace gives me the urge to create, as does my rather selfish need to hide from my responsibilities.
I find myself drawn to the Renaissance period in terms of the dislocation of the picture plane and the inventiveness of the mark-making. The grandeur of that period also really appeals to me.
For me, improvement comes from drawing and looking. I will have an idea for a particular composition and make many sketches and cartoons, some in watercolor, ink, or pencil—anything to play with the idea before committing. By the time I paint, I want to be fluent in the language in order to free myself from the strictures of oil paint.
Show Me Your Future, I'll Show You My Past, 2024 oil on canvas 66 7/8 x 51 1/8 in (170 x 130 cm)
U: What draws you to base your landscapes on Western cultural influences and vivid post-apocalyptic landscapes?
K: It's the manner in which I was educated. My generation has grown up with the knowledge that the planet is in deep distress, and since my childhood, the climate has become more extreme and unforgiving. I cannot help but depict this particular time and its more extreme outcomes. It also fits into the history of oil painting in the Christian tradition, often showing apocalyptic events and the desolation of the human race. Think of El Greco’s cataclysmic landscapes, ever-present behind his biblical characters.
U: Through painting, you explore various themes that relate to the human experience through a humanoid perspective. Could you share why you chose this method to examine your chosen themes?
K: I think one experiences life through the body first. We all have physical reactions to the world around us, especially when in nature. It seems obvious to channel this connection to the land through these anonymous figures. It also gives me the opportunity to play with the dynamics between people: Gender, race, and culture become irrelevant in the world I am painting. They are convenient placeholders for the viewer. By stripping the figures of clothes or any cultural marker, I invite the viewer to see themselves in every being.
Shallow River, 2024 oil on canvas 66 7/8 x 51 1/8 in (170 x 130 cm)
U: How have art giants such as Paul Gaugin and Noah Davis influenced your vision of the world, which you convey through painting?
K: I think of Noah Davis a lot. He leaves so much for viewers to figure out without alienating them. He reaches past the obvious and goes for something off-kilter to add disquiet to the paintings. In that way, I also try to engage with the uncanny—something familiar but just off. For a time, I thought that to make a good painting, it had to be more complex and highly skilled. Details became the main preoccupation. I am slowly learning that it's the things one doesn't fully describe that give a painting its most interesting passage.
Gaugin is more obvious in his manner of enticing the viewer. His work is bright and bold, and he pushes colour to its limit. He does this without making the paintings gaudy or crass. What I love about the paintings is also what he uses to entice you to look past the darker elements: His subject matter is deeply troubling. Though he seems to have had no qualms himself, as a contemporary artist, I feel power imbalances dripping off the canvas. One can't help but pick that apart and extrapolate it to wider colonial histories.
U: When did you know you wanted to pursue art as a career? Could you share the driving force behind your decision, the spark that ignited your artistic journey?
K: From a young age, I was encouraged to pursue all my interests. I was always in the garden, picking up bugs, making a mess, and exploring. I found school hard, so I looked for any outlet that might distract me or offer a way forward. This led me to many divergent interests in painting. I was about 16 when I locked in properly and have never felt a pull away from it.
Painting offers the ability to project one's world and perhaps the world you would like onto a surface to which others might relate. It offers me time and space and, to some extent, anonymity. These things are profound, and I value the ability to do it as a living.
U: How do you stay inspired and creative in your artistic practice?
K: For me, the constancy and structure of the studio generate inspiration. If I am in doubt about what to do with my day, I know I can always create something. It could be a print or a watercolour, anything to get the urge out.
I think I no longer seek inspiration, but just allow it to filter through from the life I live. I trust it will come.
U: If you could dine with any artist, living or dead, and interview them, who would it be and why?
K: I have always loved the words of Edmund De Waal. His ceramics are also beautiful and profound. He is a brilliant describer of the sensuality of making art. He is knowledgeable about the field of ceramics, something that I know little about. I admire his very particular approach to art and would love to spend a few hours in his company.
And maybe this is cheating, but also Chris Ofili!
For more information about Kemi's work, please visit her site. Please visit the gallery's website here for more information about her current exhibition at Night Gallery. The magazine also featured her exhibition, which can be found here.
