Kimathi Donkor is a London-based contemporary British artist of Ghanaian, Anglo-Jewish and Jamaican family heritage whose figurative paintings depict "African diasporic bodies and souls as sites of heroism and martydom, empowerment and fragility...myth and matter". According to art critic Coline Milliard, Donkor's works are ""genuine cornucopias of interwoven reference: to Western art, social and political events, and to the artist's own biography".
Early life and education
Donkor was born in Bournemouth, England, in 1965. He has said of his background: "I was born in the UK to an Anglo-Jewish mother and Ghanaian father, but was raised by my adopted parents who were from Jamaica and the UK. We lived for a time in Zambia, Central Africa, where my adopted dad worked as a vet. I finished my schooling in the west of England, then moved to London, where I eventually settled. In the meantime, my adopted parents had divorced and remarried, so the family diversity actually increased, as Zambians also joined the party. This smörgåsbord life induced an early sense of the wondrous, and sometimes maddening, complexity of identities and histories, which, I think, has been reflected in my artworks. Precisely because I was such an intimate witness to the multiple crossings and re-crossings of stories, images and journeys from around the world." Donkor received an Art Foundation Diploma from Bournemouth and Poole College of Arts followed by a BA degree in fine art from Goldsmiths College, University of London, and a master's degree in fine art at Camberwell College of Arts. He earned his PhD at Chelsea College of Arts in 2016. He also participated in community education initiatives such as Black History for Action. In 2011, he was the recipient of the Derek Hill Foundation Scholarship for the British School at Rome.
Career and works
Works by Kimathi Donkor are held by significant UK and international collections, including at the International Slavery Museum, Wolverhampton Art Gallery, the Sindika Dokolo Collection and the British Museum. His history paintings "fearlessly tackle key, dramatic, monumental moments of African diaspora history ... with a painterly preciseness that borders on aesthetic frugality", according to art historian Eddie Chambers. In 2005, Time Out magazine reported that officers from London's Metropolitan Police had entered the Bettie Morton Gallery to demand the removal of one the artist's paintings, Helping With Enquiries, from his solo exhibition Fall/Uprising. Gallery staff refused to comply and police later issued a statement that "no further action" would be taken against the painter. The artist's "Queens of the Undead" paintings depict historic female commanders from Africa and the African Diaspora, but with contemporary Londoners as models. Prior to featuring in Donkor's 2012 solo show at London's Institute of International Visual Arts, some works from the series were exhibited at the Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion in São Paulo, Brazil, for the 29th São Paulo Biennial in 2010. Caroline Menezes suggested that Donkor's work, "articulates a hidden history, tales of the past and chronicles of suppressed voices", with figures such as Nanny of the Maroons, Nzinga Mbande, Stephen Lawrence, Joy Gardner, Toussaint L'Ouverture and Jean Charles de Menezes among the subjects addressed. Writing about his 2013, London solo show, Daddy, I want to be a black artist, Yvette Greslé proposed Donkor as “one of the most significant figurative painters, of his generation, working in the United Kingdom today”. In 2017, works by the artist were featured in the Diaspora Pavilion during the 57th Venice Biennale, and in 2019 he won the DiLonghi Art Projects Artists Award at the London Art Fair.
Curating and art teaching
In 2008, Donkor was commissioned to curate the touring group show Hawkins & Co at Liverpool's Contemporary Urban Centre, featuring 70 works by 15 artists, including Raimi Gbadamosi, Keith Piper, George "Fowokan" Kelly and Chinwe Chukwuogo RoyMBE. The show, which toured to Liverpool from London, marked the bicentenary of Parliament's Act to Abolition the Slave Trade. In 2009, Donkor embarked on a three-year project at Tate Britain, Seeing Through, which engaged a group of young people from London foster homes in producing and exhibiting art at the museum. Dr Donkor is a senior lecturer at the University of the Arts, London and in 2019 was appointed as Course Leader for the BA in Painting at Camberwell College of Arts.
