Kimberley Gundle

As a Londoner from Southern Africa, there is an influence in Kimberley’s artistic heritage in her work, that have also inspired artists such as Picasso and Henry Moore when they visited this part of the world. This unique identity is present in Kimberley’s work, as she observes the people in the vast London capital, and sketches out their characters with an emphasis on the individualism and the solitary world of a person as they feel unobserved. “People have always been central to my art practice,” she tells me. She travels incognito taking trips on public transport with her tiny sketchpad, and turns the drawings into sculptural little gems of characters. However, with this thread of the diversity of abstract African art running through, “Since moving to London in 1988, I have carried a sketchbook with me on every journey on the Underground” Kimberley explains. “In these sketchbooks, I draw portraits of fellow commuters in tube carriages; strangers whom I glimpse only once, fleeting encounters which form the warp and weft of society” she emphasises “Making up the fabric of London life”. When looking at the series of artworks, you feel you know the person in the sculpture that you are looking at, as though you may have seen them before, as she sums up the life of living in a vast metropolis. “The miniature sculptures are set on concrete plinths, and borrowed from Dubuffet titled ‘Little statues of Precarious Life’.

I first saw an exhibition of Kimberley’s work back in 2009, at her solo show entitled ‘A Slice of London’. Her London series of paintings was exhibited at Art First, Cork Street, in central London. I remember looking at these paintings and thinking at first, these are views of a foreigner seeing London as some Londoners can’t. How we see our reality varies to how someone else may conceive it, Londoners believe they are progressive thinkers, yet Kimberley detects the ordinary in the daily commute, illustrating the individual within the mundane, combined with the traditional Londoner, orchestrated by a city trading on the tourist industry. This city life, juxtaposed with what is about to happen or what or who passes you by somewhat reminiscent of the film ‘Sliding Doors’ with Gwyneth Paltrow.

Kimberley and I have been friends since primary school in Johannesburg South Africa. At the age of 12, we both went our separate ways, completely lost touch and never saw each other again until we bumped into each other coincidently at a friend’s house in London 35 years later. Hard to explain what that feels like to meet someone again whom you remember only as a child. Slowly getting to know each all over again as mature women. Kimberley majored in Psychology and Fine Art at Michaelis in Cape Town, she then moved to London for her Postgraduate at The Slade School of Art completed in 1990. Kimberley has lived and worked in London ever since, her studio overlooking the beauty of their back garden. Her home and studio invite an unparalleled feeling of escapism from grey city pavements and beige-washed walls, with an interior shaped by her artistic vision, swathed in intense colour and eclectic décor. The perfect backdrop for our photo shoot. We sit down at her kitchen table (which she designed and painted) sipping coffee and chatting before the shoot.

 

Her work is a combination of both her understanding of the psychology of people and her being an artist. “Figurative as opposed to abstract, colour and line are what matters” she tells me. As demonstrated in her series of paintings ‘Below the knee’ she explains the thoughts behind this concept to me “You cannot choose your face, but you can choose the shoes you wear.” These portraits are about lifting the lid off the letterbox revealing an intimate part of who we are. Then over lunch, I am updated about her work inspired by the Maasai tribes of Kenya and Tanzania. It had been almost a decade since Kimberley first encountered the Maasai, semi-nomadic pastoralists of East Africa. She continues to be captivated by the physical adornment of these bold and dignified people living a fragile existence in a changing world. Kimberley’s first experience of the Maasai was during a charity hike across the Great Rift Valley in 2009, where she witnessed their struggle for survival during a terrible drought. Yet the women were magnificently adorned in their ornate beadwork and flowing cloth. She has resided in many remote settlements, making drawings and taking photographs of Maasai communities in both Kenya and Tanzania, absorbing their culture and tradition. She explains how she feels like an anthropologist recording a culture and tradition that is slowly being eroded by the changing world.

“Physical adornment is integral to Maasai culture and tradition,” Kimberley tells me and she celebrates the beauty of the Maasai, with a series of works. Maasai women on lace and Japanese paper, her Maasai portraits, and Cameos. The Victorian Art critic John Ruskin states “Cameos are miniature sculptures.’’ In her cameo series, Kimberley depicts each member of the Maasai community within this oval shape to reference historical miniature paintings. A percentage generated from the sales of all her work returned to the communities. She additionally completed funding a water project bringing fresh water to 5000 in the Ololosokwan community in Tanzania. These works were exhibited installations at Palazzo Bembo during the Venice Biennale 2013, 2015 and 2017. In 2018, Kimberley, exhibited at the A&D Gallery, the sales generated from this exhibition went to Enkiteng Lepa School in Kenya which she visited in June 2018. This school provides education and a haven for girls, rescuing them from FGM and protecting them from early marriage. It was founded by Helen Nkuraiya.

Her artwork extends to scarves and clothing printed with her works of the Maasai, and silk rugs. However, it’s her recent book ‘Navigating the Maze’ published in 2023, a journey of the modern world during a pandemic, illustrated daily accounts of the emotional upheaval and turmoil of the world in lockdown. The brightly expressive and colourful personal daily accounts, remind us of how the world changed, cut off and isolated and the motives of getting through each day. Kimberley reflects a strong work ethic and responsibility, a mother of three girls and a marriage coming up to 35 years. However when you meet her everything about her is progressive and colourful, she is constantly on the move, always creating, frequently traveling, open-minded and stretching boundaries.

She exhibits internationally. Recent exhibitions include, the Affordable Art Fair, Battersea and Hampstead, 2022 with C-A-K-E. The Discerning Eye, The Mall Galleries, 2021 .Zuleika Gallery, 2020, Discerning Eye, The Mall Galleries, 2019.  Collect International Art Fair for Modern Craft and Design, Saatchi Gallery, London, 2017  Personal Structures Open Borders, Venice Biennale, Palazzo Bembo, Venice, Italy, 2016, SCOPE International Art Show, Candice Berman Gallery, Basel, Switzerland, 2017 Venice Biennale, Palazzo  Bembo, Head of Society German Ambassador’s Residence London, 2016 SCOPE Basel, Johannesburg FNB art Fair, Discerning Eye London, 2015 Venice Biennale, Palazzo Bembo, 2015