Michael Armitage (b. 1984, Nairobi, Kenya)

The Fourth Estate

2017, oil on lubugo bark cloth, 330 x 200 cm.

White Cube. © Courtesy Joyner/Giuffrida Collection and White Cube.

A tree rises from a sea of heads, with the skyscrapers of Nairobi in the distance. On its bare branches sit a number of people, some wearing green wigs and one carrying a banner with a frog painted on it.  As in The Promise of Change, the frog symbolises Kenya’s political leaders who make meaningless promises to win votes.  

READ ABOUT THE BACKGROUND HERE…

Both paintings are part of a series by Armitage alluding to corruption during the country’s 2017 elections. This one also refers to Goya’s Ridiculous Folly where figures symbolising an exhausted Spanish nation, perch in a tree listening to a shadowy speaker.