Michael Armitage addresses gender and sexuality in these oil paintings he does on cloth made from Lubugo bark- a tree from Uganda, next to his homeland of Kenya. A cloth originally used for garments of ceremonial tribal leaders, Armitage stretches it for paintings like this one, called, Matrix 263, which shows a Tanzanian pop artist, Diamond Platnumz getting off a plane with his entourage. The form on the left looks to me like two people--a man and woman-- embracing, but upon further inspection, it is just one person. This could symbolize the morphing and blurring of meanings and distinctions of genders and sexualities. In Another piece of Armitage's, there is a painting of five people who also blend into their environment, like the figures in Matrix 263 but they are more blatantly discussing gender and sexuality as they fondle and inspect their and others penises.
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