For Good or Ill explores the relationship that Kenyan women had with work and employment in the 20s - 00s through the artist’s own family history.

While referencing a pre-colonial time, much of the work departs from a period immediately following colonialism in Kenya, but considers the impacts of colonialism on the changing ideas of women in work between 1963 and today.

The artist has re-constructed histories through conversations with her mother and grandmother, and uses these conversations to reflect on women’s opportunities in the workplace and by way of negative space, their responsibilities at home.

For Good or Ill brings together seven new paintings, two animations and a audio work, sitting within the context of Akinyi’s maternal grandmother’s living room in Uranga. The modelling of the Living Room talks to the consolidation of pre-colonial histories and the influence of the British Empire in many former colonies. The ‘living room’ in a colonial context is partly modelled on middle-class British aesthetics, yet it is an important space for conserving tradition in the showcase of culturally significant objects and, less tangibly, the preservation of familial traditions.

Unlike the other works in this collection, Nat’s Window (digital animation, 2021, 3 minutes, colour) theoretically sits out-with the living room and aside from the other works. This animation depicts the view from the window onto the street but connects to the living room through the distinctive sound of rainfall on the corrugated iron sheets on the roof.

The Gallow Gate
Many Studios
3 Ross Street
Glasgow G1 5AR

Artist Biography

My name is Nat Akinyi. I was born in America and am currently based in the U.K. And Akinyi is my Luo that means that I was born in the morning.

I work primarily in digital form, creating digital paintings and animations. 

The primary goal of my work is to provide positive representation for black people, particularly Africans. As a person of the African diaspora, I have often felt discouraged by the self-validating, white western-centric, distorted view of the world that is presented to us in contemporary, mainstream media, as well as in art history, and contemporary art culture. Just as the institution of fine art was created by devaluing the art of people of colour and other marginalized groups, capitalist technological advancement has been attained through the devaluing of the labour, dignity, and lives of people of colour. The logic that this exploitation rests upon is of blackness as otherness and that black lives and black suffering has less value.

The digital world represents a paradox for many Africans. For those that have access to it, digital technology can connect people across the globe, provide a boundless archive of information, and present an opportunity to express and share content that the mainstream media fails to. However, the processes through which the technology is created, the raw materials required and the labour that is required to acquire them, is exploitative and shows no respect for African lives and their surrounding environment.

I hope to add to the work of other Africans in the diaspora and within the continent that challenges existing representation, whilst also shining light on climate colonialism and environmental racism. 

Also, I studied painting and printmaking at the Glasgow School of Art (spoiler alert: do not go there if you are black because you will have a bad time).

https://natakinyi.art/