Michael Armitage: Pathos and the Twilight of the Idle

Michael Armitage is one of the most important painters of the present day. He gained recognition with large-scale paintings that depict figures in somnambulistic landscapes. In them, paint is applied in several layers, scraped off, and reworked anew. Armitage’s motifs are marked by history and current political events. He studies local rituals and political demonstrations, in addition to plant and animal life. Velvety on the surface and awash with formal beauty, his pictures possess an unsettling ambiguity.

Pathos and the Twilight of the Idle is the title of one of the artist’s works from 2019. It is a vertical-format painting of considerable size. In the center of the image is a figure that strides toward the viewer. His facial expression and hunched shoulders convey a certain readiness to accuse and fight. Attached to his chest and waist are two cans of tear gas. In his hands, which have strangely multiplied, he holds sand-colored slings. In the background, countless colors mushroom into one another. The artist created the painting after seeing a demonstration by Kenya’s largest opposition party in Nairobi in 2017. Several of the depicted demonstrators are dressed in a grotesque manner, donning costumes, wigs, or crowns. One person waves a flag. The muscular figure in the upper center wears a bikini top.