Strange Fruit, 2016

Armitage gathers his images from a wide range of sources including news and social media, his own personal memories and drawings from life. He paints in oil on Lubugo bark cloth made from the Mutuba tree, which has been harvested from trees in Uganda and is more commonly used in making sacred or ceremonial fabrics. He stretches the cloth across a frame, incorporating the resultant tears and sutures into the overall texture and composition of the image.

In Strange Fruit, Armitage depicts a female figure hanging from a branch of a Bambakofi tree, taking on a laconic and anthropomorphic symbolism. Rendered from a vantage point beneath the woman, only the soles of her feet are visible. The painting, whose title refers to the well-known protest song about the lynching of African Americans, alludes to the fact that 60% of the Kenyan population are now aged 25 and under, meaning there are very few prospects for young adults. Older members of some coastal communities have been accused of witchcraft and ostracized from the community, making their jobs and land available for the youth to take over. In extreme cases, elders have been stoned to death or lynched as witches. The tree becomes a witness to a tragic history.

Courtesy of the Artist. Collection of Qiao Zhibing