Lubaina Himid explores Blacks’ everyday life experiences in bright, colorful, and cheerful artworks. Himid is a Zanzibar-born artist, who lives and works in Preston, UK. She took part in Black Arts Movements in the 1980s. ‘Her work is politically critical, tackling questions of race, gender and class’.
In her recent exhibition Water Has a Perfect Memory, she reflects on the year 2021, a year in which questions of time were left unanswered. Himid reconstructs time’s heterogeneity by recalling various kinds of writing, from diary, note-taking, to long letters, and manifests them in painting composition.
Lubaina Himid’s “Bittersweet” (2021). © Lubaina Himid. https://www.nytimes.com/
Bittersweet (2021) depicts women in deliberation. She’s holding a basket of fruit in her head, standing while turning her face away from the man next to her. Their facial and body expressions show that they’re arguing something. This scene happened in a fruit stall. In this work, Himid combines bright colors, traditional patterns, and pop art styles. Bittersweet is an apt allusion to the woman-man relationship.
Himid also portrays men who traverse gender boundaries in her works, such as in Walking Back (2022), Six Tailors (2019), and Ball on Shipboard (2018). Walking Back (2022) depicts a man who seems to walk forward within a scene decorated with flowers. This work suggests that we can keep what lost in the past in our remembrance.
Lubaina Himid. Six Tailors, 2019. Photograph: © Lubaina Himid. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/
Six Tailors (2019) depicts six black men sitting around the table full of sewing kits. They are talking in closeness one each other. Behind them, a painting of sea and sky is mounted on a wall. This work has a similar topic with Ball on Shipboard (2018). In a party, some men stand, make conversation, and walk on the top of the shipboard. Meanwhile, someone is rowing his boat under their ship. A colorful flag with flowers printed on it is installed as a decoration on the ship. In all of these paintings, Himid employs visual metaphors, like flowers, sewing kits, and flowing water to defy gender dichotomies and represent the fluidity of identity.
Lubaina Himid, Ball on Shipboard, 2018. Rennie Collection, Vancouver. (c) Lubaina Himid. https://www.tate.org.uk/
Lubaina Himid: Water Has a Perfect Memory https://hollybushgardens.co.uk/
Two black women are standing relaxed on a ship deck, gazing at the sea waves. They seem to involve in a deep conversation. This painting is an icon of this exhibition. Like water, time is flowing and passing. However, the past does not disappear but always has its trace in the present and our remembrance.
Himid’s colors and compositions can be compared to modern artists, like David Hockney. Hockney is well-known for his paintings of Los Angeles swimming pools, A Bigger Splash (1967). His painting is bright and full of color. Hockney’s works are representations of Pop art.
Through Water Has a Perfect Memory, Himid celebrates time’s legacy, negotiates present and past, as well as passes on memory to the next generation.
Lubaina Himid: Water Has a Perfect Memory is on view at Hollybush Gardens, London, from 4 March – 14 April 2022.