Ngaben

Michael Armitage (1984 - )

6 colour lithograph on Somerset satin soft white 300gsm

2023

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© Michael Armitage - Commissioned by the Government Art Collection for The Robson Orr TenTen Award 2023

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  • About the work
    Location
    Country: UK
    City: London
    Place: Downing Street

    In Ngaben, an exquisite new lithograph commissioned for the Government Art Collection, Michael Armitage pays homage to a close artist-friend in Bali, Indonesia, who recently died. Ngaben is a Hindu cremation ceremony practised in Bali, and central to this intimate cycle-of-life vignette is the burning pyre.

    Best known for his oil paintings on Lubugo bark cloth, used by the Baganda people in Uganda to make burial shrouds, Armitage merges European painting styles with east African subjects and materials, or experiences of his recent move to Bali, weaving narratives drawn from news media, popular culture and his own memories and imaginings. Often, as here, the real meets the ethereal.

  • About the artist
    Born in 1984 in Nairobi, Kenya, to a Yorkshireman father and Kenyan mother of Kikuyu ancestry, Michael Armitage spent his childhood in east Africa before moving to London when he was 16, and later studying at the Slade School of Fine Art and Royal Academy Schools. He now works between London, Bali and Nairobi and has exhibited extensively in the UK and internationally.
  • Explore
    Places
    Subjects
    People, health & welfare, death, Ideas & beliefs, religion, Hinduism
    Materials & Techniques
    lithograph, colour lithograph
  • Details
    Artist
    Michael Armitage (1984 - )
    Title
    Ngaben
    Series Title
    TenTen
    Edition
    2/30
    Date
    2023
    Medium
    6 colour lithograph on Somerset satin soft white 300gsm
    Dimensions
    height: 38.7cm; width: 49.2cm; depth: 3.8cm
    Acquisition
    Commissioned by the Government Art Collection for The Robson Orr TenTen Award 2023, a GAC/Outset Annual Commission
    Provenance
    The artist, from whom commissioned by the Government Art Collection for The Robson Orr TenTen Award 2023, a GAC/Outset Annual Commission, October 2023
    GAC number
    19205/1