Kimathi Donkor

Kimathi Donkor is a British artist living and working in London. His work re-imagines mythic, legendary and domestic encounters across Africa and its global Diasporas.

He uses portraiture and history painting to represent dramatic modern themes, with subjects ranging from urban conflict in London to the adventures of Ghana’s anti-colonial heroine, Yaa Asantewaa. Best known for his large-scale figurative paintings he also works in drawing, video, assemblage, collage, digital design, performance and installation.

Writing about his work can be found in journals and books including Black Artists in British Art: A History Since The 1950s.

He is exhibited widely and his work is held in private and public collections internationally and in the UK, including The Wolverhampton Art Gallery.

2016

Kimathi’s work was part of the 2016 Peckham Platform Retrospective exhibition, a timeline of all 20 artists commissions realised by Peckham Platform between 2010 – 2016.

2013

In 2013 Peckham Platform commissioned Kimathi for Daddy, I want to be a Black artist, an exhibition of new work by the artist reflecting on themes arising from his engagement with local teenage black residents as they discovered the work of Black British artists in the national collection at Tate Britain.