Anita Kavochy: A Line of Thought: Circle Gallery Two

Following keen observation of places, people, and self, the work investigates the meandering routes of emotions, the confining or liberating positions we find ourselves as we navigate the world. A line is the connection between two points, it is stability yet it could also be a spiral which leads to the same place. Bethuel Muthee

A line of thought is like taking a route along a trail. Moving forward, doubling back, pausing, and in that wavering, something begins to take shape. The path is circulatory, recursive and alive. In painting, this physical and psychological wandering makes the work. Kavochy removes a subject from literal references, from direct political and social visibility and from narration or storytelling. Instead, she prioritizes a generative condition: passages where colour scrapes against line; visual friction over immediate legibility; presence, the space between seeing and sensing.

Quietly, she builds a language and safety out of necessity. That's why lines come out.

The work layers from our backgrounds, tracing the textures of materials she is collecting, thinking where they come from, and their previous placement. Following them is like experiencing life itself: how you live, politics, economics, religion, family, health, spirituality. In life, everything is happening, Kavochy makes a record of that simultaneity.

Objects become powerful when they carry memory, identity, belief and connection. Collecting material is like collecting memories: it is choosing the stories of those who used it or had contact without knowing the specifics. When you start mending or layering, you are covering the past while building a new one. The old does not disappear; it becomes substrate. The unseen begins to appear. The paintings operate like shared space, a way of collecting memories, making new images and framing the threshold.

Being here is also a continuation of lineage, of community, of memory. What you have is abundant and prosperous. We follow the line and move to find out what is beyond.

Artist Biography

Kavochy Anita is a Kenyan artist born in Kibera who primarily draws, paints, and experiments on different mediums and materials. Her work seeks to recover the layers of emotions that constitute the self and the relation to the world, the work considers lineage, and questions the notion of home and belonging. Kavochy studied at BuruBuru Institute of Fine Art in 2014 before joining Maasai Mbili Artist Collective in the same year. Her practice began in the collective learning and working alongside Maasai Mbili artists participating in exhibitions and workshops both individually and collaboratively.