Agnes Waruguru’s installation Homewares (2020) consists of a room with light pink walls and custom-designed wallpaper featuring repeated geometric patterns. On the wall is an abstract painting called Valencia (2019) and various miscellaneous objects like cans of Zesta orange marmalade, a kiondo (a traditional Kenyan handwoven basket), and a small, framed photograph of her mother. Each of these objects, chosen for their personal and cultural significance, was intended to evoke a sense of personal history.
This work, shown at the inaugural edition of the Stellenbosch Triennale in South Africa in 2017, is typical of Waruguru’s practice. Based in Nairobi, the artist reflects on domesticity and nature, using techniques from Indigenous craft-based practices, including beadwork, sewing, and knitting, which she learned from the women in her life. These ways of making have often passed down matrilineal lines—she first learned how to crochet and embroider from her mother.
This year has brought Waruguru’s work to a broad swathe of new audiences. She was included in a group show at Circle Art Gallery, which represents her work, and another at Rele. She also completed the prestigious Rijksakademie fellowship in Amsterdam in 2023. Most significantly, her work was selected for inclusion in “Foreigners Everywhere” at the Venice Biennale, curated by Adriano Pedrosa: eight floor-to-ceiling cotton sheets delicately adorned with acrylic ink and natural pigments. Across these shows, she has presented her unique painting language, capturing subtle observations in nature and recording the passing of time and the landscapes she experiences.
In a recent Zoom conversation from her home in Nairobi, the artist was warm, quietly confident, yet thoughtful in her responses. She talked about her experiences in the U.S. and the Netherlands, and how returning to Kenya and a deep appreciation for nature and the natural world informs her practice. “Nature is a big part of the work and will outlive us all,” she explained. “There’s so much knowledge and history.” Some areas of nature have become particularly important in her work: “Water is something I’ve been quite invested in, how much of a life source it is as part of the natural world,” she said. “I think of it as an archive of memory and how it can inform us about how we live.”
In Reality, Dreaming of Palms, 2020
Agnes Waruguru
Circle Art Gallery
Nights in the Sun, 2020
Agnes Waruguru
Circle Art Gallery
In her earlier works on paper and cotton from 2020, including Dreams of More, and More, and Yesterday and In Reality, Dreaming of Palms, Waruguru captures delicate outlines of flora and fauna, from the coastal island environment of Lamu Island, Kenya. There, the artist undertook the Saba Artist Residency, located on an idyllic palm plantation by the Indian Ocean, which was when she began to cleanse her textile works with salt water. “I was captivated by the transformative marks left by the salt water on the paintings,” she said. “This deliberate technique introduced an exciting element of unpredictability into my artistic process.”
Waruguru earned her BFA from the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) in 2017. Studying in the U.S., away from her native Kenya, in a predominantly white, male, and Western environment led Waruguru to question her identity as a queer Black African woman and her place within art histories. “When I arrived at SCAD, I had a sort of identity crisis as I was in both a white and a male-dominated teaching and painting environment, even though this was in Georgia,” said Waruguru. “I began to probe my place and voice within this context, so I began using these familiar ways of making art as a form of home-making and self-meditating through craft practices that reminded me of both my mother and home in Kenya.” Thousands of miles from where she grew up, she began to mine memories of home.
Waruguru is deliberate in her abstract painting process, yet she hesitates to be categorized formally as an abstract or minimal painter. “I don’t consider myself a minimalist, even though my work may seem subtle,” she said. “What truly fascinates me is the tranquility and gradual evolution of the process.”
Waruguru has used many different materials in her practice, and takes an experimental, almost scientific approach: “I find it intriguing to experiment with different materials to realize their potential. It’s about uncovering infinite possibilities through small adjustments and closely observing each stage of the transformation,” she said. This process can be collaborative and meaningful: “I don’t work alone; I engage with multiple pieces simultaneously,” she said, “turning the process into an active journey of creation, collection, gathering, and arrangement. My work is like a community of interconnected entities, coming together as a unified whole, inviting the audience to feel a sense of unity and community through my artworks.” This unusual use of materials drawn from everyday life is a way to turn the familiar, domestic environment into something new.
Most recently, her impressive installation at the Venice Biennale, titled Incomprehensible Weather in the Head (2024), brought this approach to the large white cotton sheets that form the canvas for the work. They are adorned with acrylic, paint, Indian ink, natural pigments, saffron, pastels, charcoal, and glass beads. These tiny glass spheres reflect light from the work, while pigments and spices like saffron create intense stains on the cotton. When viewed at a distance, the sheets look something like ancient scrolls, marked by time, encouraging closer inspection of these constellations of marks.
In the Venice show, Waruguru is the sole Kenyan participant in an exhibition focusing strongly on textiles. Her delicate and confident paintings demand attention alongside impressive works by artists incorporating Indigenous textile-making traditions.
Waruguru views painting as more than just a medium; it’s a unique way to explore her personal history through gestures and markmaking on surfaces. “I like tactility, using my hands, and feeling different materials,” she said. Craft techniques that she learned in her family have become essential in her understanding of her practice. “Slow making is something I’ve always been quite interested in; even before embroidery, I was making a lot of densely built-up line drawings I’d have to build up over time,” she added.
This has created a link across time and place that has tethered Waruguru to her home and family. “I have gotten closer to all the women in my life through this work,” she said, “particularly when I’ve been away from home, when they have served as long-distance relationships connecting back to then and a particular time.” As Waruguru looks to a bright future in the art world, these familial bonds continue to root her artworks to her home, even as they, and she, traverse the globe.
The Artsy Vanguard 2025
The Artsy Vanguard is our annual feature highlighting the most promising artists working today. The seventh edition of The Artsy Vanguard features 10 exceptional talents poised to become the next great leaders of contemporary art. Explore more of The Artsy Vanguard 2025 and browse works by the artists.
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