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.
