>>Good morning an welcome to Global Perspectives.

I'm David Dumke.

Today we are joined by artist and UCF instructor Njeri Kinuthia.

Welcome to the show.

>>Thank you so much, David.

>>So Njer tell us a little about your art.

You've got an extraordinary story.

You came to UCF from Kenya.

Tell us a little about your art and kind of your path and how you get here.

And lots of questions related to your art, so we'll start there.

>>Right.

My initial interest in art started when I was in high school.

I started doing some fashion design sketches.

My parents were very encouraging, so I decided to pursue fashion and design for my bachelors.

And when I was pursuing it, I had even more interest in fine art.

So I started doing portraiture.

People are commissioning me for their friends gifts and that's how I got into art.

So after I graduated in 2019, I decided to apply to the US because I wanted to see what's out there.

And that's how I got into UCF.

So I applied to a few schools here in Florida.

I was trying to avoid the snow.

And I actually got a scholarship from UCF and I came down here 2021, August.

>>Your art is very unique, and I want to ask a little about your motivation for it.

I mean, a lot of people, when they think of art, they think of painting or drawing or very specific forms, you blend your art.

How did you get get there?

Was this process of experimentation or or how did you get there?

>>Initially when I joined UCF my first year, I was making charcoal drawings, but I was also introduced to printmaking, something I had never worked with before.

And I found that to be really fun.

Having studio visits with different professors i grad school was really inspiring for me to try and experiment with different materials.

For example, one of my professors did site specific installations using all kinds of materials that people wouldn't consider conventional to the arts.

And that was how my interest was born and trying all sorts of materials.

So by the time I was graduating, I had tried charcoal.

I was my portfolio when I applied to UCF was actually a lot of oil paintings.

So I didn't do much of that.

Instead, I started the printmaking, did a lot of charcoal and then site specific installations, soft sculptures, and then textile art.

After I graduated from fashion school, I thought to myself, wow, it looks like I'm not going to do anything with my fashion degree.

And then in my third year when I was closer to graduation, that's when I thought I can actually use some of my design skills and textiles.

And I started incorporating textiles from Kenya and Africa into my work, and I feel like that's where my work took off because it was very, very meaningful and poignant in a beautiful way to me.

>>You have won numerous awards and I'm not going to list them all today.

I can't remember them all.

But the reaction, obviously, to your art has been overwhelmingly and very, very positive.

What are the most common questions you get asked about your art?

>>I com - most common question will be what inspires me?

And I'll say, what really inspires me is highlighting the kind of suppression the women go throug that is perpetuated by culture, societal norms, cultural norms, and religion.

So even growing up as a little girl in a village in Kenya, I sort of observed these thing that made me so uncomfortable.

And I started questioning why is this happening to women?

Why are they saying that?

As a woman, I can only do this.

I can only do so much.

And there's just so many restrictions.

So that became my inspiration when I was writing my thesis and eventually in my work.

>>You've said your art is also a mirror of you.

So where does that come from and what specific pieces of your work are most reflective of you or are they all different parts of you?

>>Well, fun fact a lot of my work is actually self-portraiture.

Looks like my whole portfolio, which was just complete compiling the other day, is actually self-portraiture.

I have recently done a portrait of my brother, but it's mostly usually me.

And you're right, it is a mirror, a reflection of my experiences growing up.

So hearing these things about women and the restrictions, I started sort of exploring my experience through my own gaze, like what I experienced.

And I found that a lot of women actually identify.

They resonate with what I'm saying.

Whether or not they grew up in Africa, they have felt in some sort of way that they were suppressed in a certain way.

So I think that was the most beautiful part about me doing my self-portraits and thinking, this is just about my experience but having even women in the US resonate with my work.

>>I wanted to ask you about the culture because you're saying this is your work is a reflection of yourself.

You're talking about, some of the gender issues that that are reflected in your work, and that is based a lot on your experiences growing up in Kenya.

Is that transferable to the United States and perhaps other areas of the globe?

Is this a a universal feeling of women, or is it something that's unique to your specific upbringing in Kenya?

>>I will say the overall feeling of suppression in certain ways is actually universal.

When you read about the feminist wave, even in the US, you will find that women then and now, it's still even that politics.

Today in America, the women who still feel suppressed in a certain way.

But it is different in every country.

For example, in my country or my culture, it is very specific cultural traditions that made me feel that women was suppressed in certain ways and in other countries it's other things.

My best friend in grad school was is from Iran, and her work was exploring how the Iranian women were also suppresse and it was because of the hijab.

And in my country, it's also things like gender based violence or even child marriages.

Bride price or dowry payment, which made me really uncomfortable as a young girl, knowing that I will be exchanged for goats and cows.

So that is the concept of dowry payment, whic is very popular in my country.

And so I think it's different things in different places, but I think it's, it's there so many places.

>>I want to ask the question and it's not, you know what these experiences tha you're talking about in Kenya.

I would say, how did you escape them or how did you avoid them, or did you avoid them or they or they part of you, you know, you obviously.

You know, I don't know if you were traded for, for a goat for example.

Well you just, you're your own what you just mentioned.

But you have moved a little beyond that kind of looking now, from Orlando, Florida on your memories and that.

But you lived through those.

So what are some experiences you personally had that kind of kind of shaped that?

>>Well, the number one that comes to mind is actually dressing.

My latest artwork has the text that says Mavazi yangu, chaguo langu that is "My dress my choice" in Swahili.

In 2015 that phrase became very popular as women protested the stripping of women who wore short dresses in Nairobi.

It was horrific.

And even as this men stripped this women naked, police did not help.

In fact, they became part of that.

So there was this rape culture and stripping off women and taking videos and sharing them on social media.

It was very disturbing.

And what really got my attention is how many people, including women, blamed the victim.

And well, of course, because I grew up in a very religious background I was not allowed to wear short things or shorts.

So I was required to wear stockings when I wore short things and I hated them.

I just felt this sort of suppression the way, why can't I just wear shorts on a hot day?

So I used to take them off when I left the house, and my mom didn't know.

But when I got into New York, when I landed in New York, I remember the first time I wore shorts.

In fact.

Fun fact is that it's my mom's friend who got their shorts for me.

She was hosting me in New York.

We went out shopping and she got them for me and they were very short shorts and they walked in Manhattan.

I took a video of myself.

I felt such a huge breath of freedom.

I could not believe I was walking in shorts.

No one was harassing me, throwing stones, stares and jeers.

It was just a regular day in New York, a girl being herself and enjoying.

It was a very hot day.

So I would say it is different.

I have definitel had a better experience in terms of what I can get away with as a woman.

I wore shorts my first semester, even on cold days, because I was just so excited and it was like, oh my God, I can wear shorts, right?

And I, I haven't had to go through the bride pric or dowry payment ceremony yet.

And it has been a discussion with my family.

But the reason it makes me so uncomfortable is because it has been turned into this commodification of women, where you're giving me a list of items including goats, cows, beer, and just so many items.

So you give it to you give it to the parents of the bride, and the man takes the woman.

There's no other way for me to look at this.

Aside from i being a very clear transaction that you literally selling me off.

And it's very sad because that perpetuates child marriages.

I have read and watche horrific documentaries on child marriages all over the world, and what caught my attention is that some of these people will admit it was the only way out.

If they can sell their daughter for a hundred goats at 13 the they will have food for a while.

And that really, really breaks my heart.

And well, I was able to escape that.

But what about those other youn girls in other parts of Africa and other parts of the world that are still at risk of being sold off?

So I would say that's what inspires me in the studio as I make my work.

>>That thank you for sharing that.

That is, really, moving, the way you showed through your artwork.

Then how do you how are you channeling those feelings into your artwork and name some specific pieces that perhaps mean more to you than than others?

>>I will say my series, Smothered series is actually what got a lot of attention.

I felt like I was scared in my first two years of graduate school, and I did not even show my work outside of UCF because I was so terrified of what people in Kenya will think about me, or what they will say about me talking about these issues.

So I started my series Smothered.

It started as a regular portrait self-portrait.

I was just drawing myself wearing a head wrap.

But then I felt thi does not represent how I feel.

I feel suppressed in a way.

I felt stifled in a way.

So I wrapped myself up really tight with those cultural fabrics, and they took pictures and staged it.

And that suffocation is I felt like that was the perfect representation.

It encapsulated what I had been feeling, and I did six others of the same serie of different contexts of women wrapped in those fabrics, and one interesting one, which is no owned by one of my collectors, said, "Mungu" Mungu is God.

Mungu Swahili for God.

So it says God is my refuge.

And so in that wrapping I left when I was wrapping myself, I left the word mungu close to the mouth in a very deliberate way because I was questioning, Is God really the refug of this women when their plight and their sufferin is perpetuated by this religion?

It's this religion that says what they can and cannot do.

And yeah, I began questioning those things through my work and my Smothered series, I'd say has been really successful, and I'm actually still working on it, still pursuing it, but in different, other ways.

>>How do you how do you make how do you evolve those feelings then through this series?

>>Well, I started off just having portraits, nothing else-- >>So just you and then you're-- >>Right.

And then I did another on called Looking at Me Smothered and this was interesting because instead of just a portrait of myself wrapped in this fabrics, I did a big drawing of me unwrapped as I am now looking back at myself, wrapped all over the body, including my arms.

And so that was actually me reflecting on how my life has changed and evolved, and how I'm able to enjoy certain forms of freedom, like wearing shorts.

So it was sort of looking back at my previous life and just how far I've come to even realize that I don't have to be weighed down by what society or cultural norms say or religion says about what a woman should do or should not do.

So I have seen it as growth.

And then I did my favorite.

That is definitely one of my favorite artworks that I have created to date.

It is called Hail Reverend Njeri.

So I was actually a preacher in my past life in Kenya before I started thinking really deeply about religion.

So my friend from Texas actually signed m up to be a reverend as a joke.

And when I got the email.

Hello.

Congratulations, Reverend Njeri I thought wow, there's something in this.

So I did a portrait of myself looking down to the viewer, and then I sewed this huge robe that extends many feet beyond me.

And then I hung up over.

I hung it up over 100ft off the ground, so that the viewer will have to literally look up to me.

And I'm looking down to them and our gaze meets.

But what's interesting is that I'm wearing a miter that is looks like a pope or a bishop miter.

And then I have this robe that is inspired by religious and also cultural authority figures like Nigerian kings.

Right.

S I'm taking a place of authority.

So my work also became a celebration of my newly found identity and power within myself.

So it went from being all wrapped up and suppressed to taking a huge, huge presence where suddenly someone felt small and standing in front of my work.

And that's how my other really big installations were born.

Like my number, which was previously at the Orlando Museum of Art for the Florida Prize in Contemporary Art, is 17ft tall and the diameter is 30ft.

So when you're inside, you're suddenly really small.

And up there, really up there is a portrait of me.

>>Wow.

>>Yeah.

>>Where where is your you where is your work being shown right now?

>>So next, I just had this sho taken that it was a group show in South Carolina, bu the next one will be in Tampa.

I'm really excited for this.

It will be at the Hillsborough Community College Gallery very beautiful space.

I'll be having a solo show.

And the title of this show is ukombozi.

Ukombozi means liberation in Swahili.

So it's ukombozi, reclaiming self and place.

So I'll also be having site specific installations at the gallery.

And then I do have another upcoming solo show that will be at the Alvi Polasek Museum in Winter Park, and that is titled Threads of Freedom.

And I'll also have a cathedral inspired site-specific installation in there.

>>Amazing.

>>Yeah.

>>Amazing stuff.

How is your art been received in Kenya?

>>Well, that is interesting.

I have had people comment on Facebook a lot of congratulatory messages, especially with the winning of awards.

And I've also had people send me private messages telling me that I am shaming women because my wor sometimes also contains nudity, and that I shouldn't be doing that, that God wouldn't love what I'm doing.

So I'd say it's both going both ways.

I would say m parents are really proud of me, and I was really afraid that they would not be happy with me doing work that contains nudity, but they have been very, very supportive of me.

>>The use of nudity, is that with consistent with your your emphasis on kind of liberation and freedom?

>>Yes.

So my initial interest in nudity starte as a form of rebellion, right.

So when I came to the U.S. and I walked into the Visual Arts building here at UCF, and there was a nude man standing there for live portrait session I took fashion design in Kenya.

And even for figure drawing classes, we did it with fully clothed models.

How am I supposed to learn anatomy with a fully clothed model?

So when when I remember Gary the model, when he took his robe off and no one thought that was - no one was chuckling and I'm like, oh my God.

>>But for you, it was like-- >>It was it was so big.

Oh my God.

No way.

It was really big.

And then I figured, wow.

So you mean I can just do nude art and no one really cares?

It's no big deal.

So in grad school, we're here, the studios, we were having thes conversations with professors, and we have students making nude work.

And it was just like any other art.

It wasn't raising eyebrows.

They weren't considered to be slutty or anything like that.

It was just their form of expression.

So I thought to myself, well, I felt really suppressed.

I couldn't wear shorts.

How about I do portrait of myself naked, right?

I think that's the worst I can do.

So that's how I started.

But my drawings initially had subtle signs, like my windows had prison bars instead of regular windows.

And I have this subtl connotations of the suppression I was feeling, or like shackles that weren't so clear but sort of hidden in there.

And then my last portrait in grad school, I did a full figure on where it's a full frontal nude and I'm looking back at the viewer unafraid.

So it also evolved from me being in prison and feeling scared and looking back at the viewer and sort of maybe being a victim to taking my power back and looking at the viewer.

And it came from vulnerability and shame to power and celebrating my sexuality and identity and owning it and making it be a form and a source of power for myself.

>>Is your artwork as you go forward, is your artwor going to reflect where you are and who you are now, as oppose to just these kind of memories that have inspired most of your artwork before, from Kenya and how you grew up, you kind of getting to the poin of being able to be liberated?

>>Yes I feel like my work right now is actually a representation of where I am with my own relationship to my identity and even sexuality.

I have done a portrait.

It's called Immaculate and I, I did embroidery and golden beads around it, and it's very beautiful.

It's sort of like an icon and it's circular.

So it draws from religious stained glass portraits.

And the one I was talking about the My Dress My Choice is just a huge drawing of me wearing shorts and just being like, my dress, my choice.

Really short shorts.

So yeah.

>>I get it, really short shorts.

You emphasized that part several times.

So I - this is just a very unique approach to art.

Who inspired you?

What were the artists who inspired you, if any?

>>Oh yeah.

Mickalene Thomas, one of my favorite artists.

I remember when one of th professors mentioned her to me.

I was very excited to discover another woman doing nudes that are so powerful, they don't feel like they are just there to be looked at, available for the male gaze.

They are also looking back at the viewer and taking back that power.

That and Renee Cox.

I actually had the honor of meeting Renee Cox, one of the most powerful artists and she also has that.

She she told me that the gaze is her power.

She's so unafraid and so bold.

She' not calling her self-portraits.

And that's what I really, really enjoyed.

So I started workin with collage in my second year, inspired by Mickalene Thomas.

And then I shifted my gaze, inspired by Renee Cox, among other artists that I have looked at.

Another one of my favorite would be, let me see.

I think that's that's all I can think of.

Those two were mainly my inspiration.

>>So that's who inspired you.

And now you're also an instructor of art.

So what do you do with young aspiring artists to get them to kind of b consistent, to read themselves?

How do you inspire younger, younger people?

>>Well, right.

I remember one in one of my painting classes, I got very candi and shared my story with them, and they were really captivated and interest and were like, wow, I'm so glad you shared that.

And I told them, I'm glad you think it was interestin because I don't want to cringe on my way home because I got really personal and told them this story.

When they met me, they just knew me as their instructor.

But I think knowing my backstory and knowing where I'm coming fro and how I'm using my experience as my inspiration is really important for my students to know and not to be ashamed of who they are.

But take advantage of that and see how you can channel and fuel your art.

And it's it's been really interesting just seeing how my students are growing from their first meeting to the last one in this semester, taking charge and being bold and really owning it.

>>Do you see?

We only have have about a minute left, so I want to.

I want to wrap up here, but I think this is this is a really good, good theme.

Do you see some of your you know, there was a point in your career where you're like, all right, this is where I'm going, and I'm happy with this direction.

Do you see that no with some of these young artists like you see some of the kind of just muddling through, but others are really kind of taking off and becoming themselves.

>>Yes.

And I am so proud of them.

And I tell them, I tell them, I am so proud of you.

The progress you're making.

Please keep doing this and I inspire them to just keep the keep being committe to what they're doing, because I see myself in them too.

I see myself when I was a really committe student, finishing assignments and doing an extra painting and being very fueled.

And I, I really loved that.

I think teaching is is the best thing I can do as a, as an artist myself, because my students inspire me as much as I inspired them.

After a long day-- >>Kind getting fuel all the time, right?

>>Yeah, they get me really excited.

I haven't painted in a while because I've been doing a lot of textile work, but when my students present this painting to you in critique, I rush back home and paint.

Right?

So it's this back and forth inspiration that keeps both of us on fire to create.

And I really enjoy that.

>>That's great.

So, Njeri tell the viewers, if you will, where they can find your artwork.

You have you have a website, obviously, that you can look.

>>Yes, my website is in njerikinuthia.com and my Instagram is @Njeriartist.

I do post a lot of my work and upcoming shows.

Yeah.

>>Well, thank you so much for joining us today.

It's been a real pleasure.

>>Thank you so much for having me.

>>And thank you for joining us.

We'll see you again next week on another episode of Global Perspectives.