“Making At With a ‘Sense of Responsibility’" by Farah Nayeri
2026
For the next eight months, the 18th-century Palazzo Grassi on the Grand Canal in Venice is offering visitors a striking and highly atmospheric visual experience of Africa.
Across two levels of the palazzo, the Kenyan British artist Michael Armitage is presenting 45 paintings and more than 100 studies and drawings. The show has been organized by the Pinault Collection, which manages the French billionaire François Pinault’s art collections and exhibition spaces, including Palazzo Grassi.
Armitage, 42, grew up in Kenya until the age of 16, then attended boarding school and art schools in Britain. He brings his dual African and European heritage to his paintings: They represent real or imaginary scenes set in East Africa, yet are rendered in a style that sometimes recalls Goya and Gauguin.
Unusually, the artist paints on bark cloth – made of the water-soaked bark of a ficus tree – which can have small cracks and even holes on the surface.
Armitage discussed this material, his family roots, and his recent move to Indonesia in a video interview, briefly interrupted by his 3-year-old daughter, from his childhood home in Nairobi, Kenya. The conversation has been edited and condensed.
