Jonathan Gathaara Sölanke Fraser Kenyan, b. 1995

  • Lives and works in Nairobi
    Jonathan Gathaara Sölanke Fraser uses drawing as a means to engage with the world around him through a varied approach... Jonathan Gathaara Sölanke Fraser uses drawing as a means to engage with the world around him through a varied approach...

    Jonathan Gathaara Sölanke Fraser uses drawing as a means to engage with the world around him through a varied approach that includes observational sketching, plant pressing, digital image collection and writing. This multifarious interaction with his environment strives towards a more internal and intuitive “knowing”: one born less of experience and learning, and more of dreaming. 

     

    Fraser’s energetic and enigmatic drawings seek to complicate meaning and create new relationships between objects and ideas. Disparate elements in the drawing field are allowed to take up similar qualities in space, eschewing their typical contexts. The drawing field itself is broken down so that a conventional approach to looking and understanding is revised. Fraser invites the viewer to consider the transformations brought by shifts in the conditions of encounter or presentation. This process of de-contextualization is aided by the repetition of certain motifs and objects within and across compositions, extending them through space and time. This reiteration and multiplication emphasizes the contingent nature of meaning and its dependency on spatial and temporal relations.

     

    Fraser studied Fine Art at Kenyatta University. In 2021 his solo exhibition There Is A Time and A Place was held at Circle Art Gallery. He has shown in numerous group exhibitions in Nairobi including: Fictions, Circle Art Gallery, 2022; I Will See What I Want to See, Circle Art Gallery, 2019; If Not Now, Cave Bureau, 2018; Line: The Basic Element, One Off Contemporary Art Gallery, 2018; Stranger Times, Circle Art Gallery, 2017; Anatomy of Me, The Art Space, 2017.  

  • Works
    • Jonathan Gathaara Sölanke Fraser, Days End // Day's End, 2021
      Days End // Day's End, 2021
    • Jonathan Gathaara Sölanke Fraser, Death and Dreaming, 2021
      Death and Dreaming, 2021
    • Jonathan Gathaara Sölanke Fraser, These Boots Ain't Made for Walking, 2021
      These Boots Ain't Made for Walking, 2021
    • Jonathan Gathaara Sölanke Fraser, Sleipnir, 2021
      Sleipnir, 2021
    • Jonathan Gathaara Sölanke Fraser, One Snake: Two, 2021
      One Snake: Two, 2021$ 1,825.00
    • Jonathan Gathaara Sölanke Fraser, Supreme Blessedness, 2021
      Supreme Blessedness, 2021
    • Jonathan Gathaara Sölanke Fraser, Rainfall and Wind as a Study for Plant Life (V), 2020
      Rainfall and Wind as a Study for Plant Life (V), 2020
    • Jonathan Gathaara Sölanke Fraser, Rainfall and Wind as a Study for Plant Life (IX), 2020
      Rainfall and Wind as a Study for Plant Life (IX), 2020
    • Jonathan Gathaara Sölanke Fraser, A Dog and a Dog this Way Come, 2020
      A Dog and a Dog this Way Come, 2020
    • Jonathan Gathaara Sölanke Fraser, The Stuff of Nightmares, 2020
      The Stuff of Nightmares, 2020
    • Jonathan Gathaara Sölanke Fraser, The Birds Were Perched on the Roof, 2020
      The Birds Were Perched on the Roof, 2020
    • Jonathan Gathaara Sölanke Fraser, What Are You Looking At?, 2019
      What Are You Looking At?, 2019
    • Jonathan Gathaara Sölanke Fraser, Untitled (viii), 2019
      Untitled (viii), 2019
    • Jonathan Gathaara Sölanke Fraser, The Lion at the Gate, 2019
      The Lion at the Gate, 2019
  • Video
  • Exhibitions
  • Art fairs