mixed media, 31x23cm

“Education is both liberating and limiting. Exploring inherited hope, personal freedom and the tension between empowerment and conformity within systems shaped by patriarchy, capitalism and inequality.”
ARTIST BIO: Cynthia Nyakiro Ngunjiri, born 1994, is a visual artist born and based in Nairobi, Kenya. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Fine Art and Design, majoring in painting and sculpture, from Kenyatta University, in 2022. Her practice spans a range of media, including recycled paper, x-rays, magazine cut-outs, ink, bleach, pigment, photography, and digital media. She explores materiality, transformation, and human experience. With a background in architecture, her work is influenced by structure, deconstruction, and reassembly. She draws inspiration from nature, human relationships, and metaphysical ideas, often working with found objects and organic materials. By manipulating and reconfiguring these elements, she gives them new significance, allowing them to take on layered narratives. Cynthia’s most recent work featured in the inaugural Stedelijk x C& Editorial special journal issue, To Spring from Salted Earth, where she presented a visual art project in process featuring plant motifs inspired by her family’s generational knowledge of medicinal plants, as well as The Unfurling of My Abject Rage, which was a collaborative exhibition between herself and Kenyan artist Chela Yego, whereby they explored personal and collective anger through handmade paper and found materials.