Michael Armitage

Michael Armitage painted this piece in response to the aftermath of the 2017 general election in Kenya. Crowds of people protested the outcome of the election, and at least 45 people died in the demonstrations. Armitage fills the piece with imagery that references historical narratives and contemporary media, as well as his own memories and ideas of Kenya, where he was born. Painted on Lubugo, a bark cloth traditionally used as a burial shroud by the Baganda people of Uganda, Armitage shows the protestors transformed by tear gas, revealing skeletal figures.

• Artist Michael Armitage
• Artwork The Promised Land
• Material FSC Certified paper and wood
• Date of work 2019
• Credit Original: Oil paint, acrylic paint, graphite and chalk pastel on bark cloth 221 x 421 cm Tate. Purchased with funds provided by Harry and Lana David 2022 © Michael Armitage

Michael Armitage (b. 1984) is a Kenyan-born British artist who lives and works in Nairobi and London. He studied at Slade School of Art, graduating in 2007 and earned his Postgraduate diploma at the Royal Academy Schools, London in 2010. He creates bold paintings that explore politics, history, sexuality, and challenge cultural preconceptions. Armitage founded a nonprofit arts venue to promote East African artists, the Nairobu Contemporary Art Institute, in 2020, which holds exhibitions, libraries, archives, curatorial research residencies and educational initiatives. He was elected a Royal Academician of Painting in 2021. His work has been widely exhibited in institutions across the world, and his work is held in galleries globally, including Tate, which currently holds 11 of his artworks.

• Product Code S22419