Agnes Waruguru, Water memories and blooms, 2022, Acrylic paint, ink, salt, and natural pigment on cotton, 400 x 400 cm / 157 1/2 x 157 1/2 in
Agnes Waruguru is a Kenyan contemporary artist whose work ranges from painting, drawing, printmaking, needlework, and installation. The materiality of objects in space is at the center of her practice which is intimately rooted in personal identity politics. Her work often references traditional women’s practices and cultural identifiers. Often referencing nature and familiar spaces, Waruguru uses traditional and non-traditional materials within her work to represent nature and the domestic.
Waruguru is interested in everyday materials, especially those associated with the home and everyday life. Her cultural identity combines strong attachments to the country of her birth and her adopted homes, a hybrid identity. She layers found materials and images with objects she’s had around her home to make wall hangings.
Her practice is a weaving of slow meditative processes and quick reactive moments, it is at once formal and abstract yet draws on everyday processes and crafts.
Agnes Wauruguru (b. 1994 in Kenya) has been exhibited in group shows internationally including galleries in France, Kenya and Savannah and Valencia in the US. Waruguru received a B.F.A. in painting from the Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah, GA, 2017. She is currently in residency at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam.