Agnes Waruguru Njoroge

Agnes Waruguru Njoroge (b.1994 in Nairobi, Kenya) is an artist whose work ranges from painting, drawing, printmaking, needlework and installation. The material presence of objects within space lies at the heart of her practice, which is closely connected to personal identity politics and frequently draws on women’s practices and traditional cultural markers.

Waruguru presents a topographic consideration of homemaking, building with tender and soft forces recognisable from practices of care. The itinerant patterns that emerge across the features of her artworks seem to show the artist tracking intimacy in objects and their materiality. The unobtrusive presence of marks, measured and delicate in form, invoke objects as guardians of memory. Her work explores the relationships between objects, space, memory and identity, attending closely to the material and emotional histories embedded within everyday forms and practices. Through her multidisciplinary approach, Waruguru considers how intimate gestures and acts of care can shape our understanding of belonging and homemaking.

Waruguru received a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) from the Savannah College of Art and Design in the United States. Her work has been exhibited in America, France, South Africa and Kenya, and she has participated in residencies in Kenya and Australia, including the Saba Artists Residency in Lamu, Kenya. In 2020, Waruguru was part of the inaugural edition of the Stellenbosch Triennale in South Africa. She currently lives and works in Nairobi, Kenya.

Contributors: Fulufhelo Mobadi (A Story of Nothingness), Sara Abdu Bushra (Worldmaking within Politics of Sight and Space) and Favour Ritaro (The Distance between Yesterday and Tomorrow)

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