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Kenyan artist Wangari Mathenge opens ‘Re-membering,’ her first solo exhibition with Lévy Gorvy Dayan in New York, showing five new paintings and her first publicly exhibited sculptures through Oct. 24, 2026. The work examines Kenyan colonial history and cultural memory through a process of ‘gathering and reassembly.’
Kenyan artist Wangari Mathenge has opened Re-membering, her first solo exhibition with Lévy Gorvy Dayan in New York, presenting five new paintings alongside the first sculptures she has exhibited publicly. The show, on view through October 24, 2026 at the gallery’s 19 E. 64th Street location, extends a series the artist began in 2024 and treats Kenyan colonial history as material to be reassembled rather than reproduced.
The exhibition takes its name and part of its intellectual framework from Kenyan author Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s 2009 book Something Torn and New: An African Renaissance. According to the gallery and reporting by Design Milk, Mathenge began the project by studying Kenyan colonial literature and cultural objects spanning 1900 to 1963, the year Kenya gained independence from the United Kingdom, questioning how both history and her own cultural identity had been constructed.
The new paintings mark a shift in that investigation from contemplation toward action. Women, each serving as an avatar for Mathenge, occupy richly layered domestic interiors set in the 1960s, surrounded by objects, textiles, and cultural references that function as personal and historical markers. Works on view include Re-membering XIII (May the Wind Be Always at Your Back) and Re-membering XII (The Wednesday Women’s Club).
The exhibition also introduces two sculptures that carry the reconstruction concept beyond the canvas. Re-membering VIII (Before Us, After Us, Ever Changing) pairs a hand-carved wooden doorframe made by artisans in Malindi, Kenya, drawing on the carved doors of Lamu Old Town, with a densely embellished macramé textile created with help from the artist’s family and community. Re-membering IX (The Shape of Inheritance) is a voluminous knitted garment on a dress form that reinterprets historical Gikuyu dress while incorporating colonial references, including the Victorian bustle and train.
Why This Show Marks a Turn
The exhibition represents Mathenge’s first solo outing with Lévy Gorvy Dayan, a major New York gallery, and her public debut as a sculptor after establishing her practice primarily in painting. For viewers, the pairing of mediums shows an artist testing whether the ideas behind her paintings — the fragmentation and reassembly of cultural memory — can be enacted physically, through carved wood, knitted textiles, and communal making.
The show also contributes to a broader contemporary conversation about how artists from formerly colonized nations engage archival history without treating it as fixed. Mathenge’s inclusion of community members and Kenyan artisans in the sculpture-making process makes the act of gathering itself part of the work’s subject.
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From Ngũgĩ’s Theory to Canvas
The Re-membering series began in 2024, and this exhibition expands it with new paintings and sculpture. The title’s hyphenation is deliberate: in Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s writing, re-membering means not merely remembering but actively putting back together what colonialism fragmented — a concept Mathenge adopts across both painting and sculpture.
The historical scope of her research runs from 1900, during the period of British colonial rule, to 1963, when Kenya gained independence. The 1960s domestic settings of the paintings place her figures at the threshold of that transition, in interiors filled with layered cultural references.
“Re-membering signifies not merely the act of recall, but the active gathering and reassembly of what has been fragmented: cultural memory, inherited forms, histories, and ways of seeing.”
— Wangari Mathenge
What the Show Leaves Open
Interpretations of the work as being ‘as much about what can be carried forward as what has been lost’ reflect Design Milk’s editorial reading of the exhibition. The gallery has not announced whether the sculptures will enter museum collections, whether the series will continue beyond this exhibition, or whether the show will travel to other venues after its New York run ends on October 24, 2026.
After the New York Run
The exhibition closes on October 24, 2026 at Lévy Gorvy Dayan, 19 E. 64th Street, New York. Visitors can view the paintings and the two collaborative sculptures in person before then. Any future dates, additional chapters of the Re-membering series, or institutional acquisitions would be announced by the gallery; none had been confirmed at the time of this report.
Key Questions
Where and when can I see Wangari Mathenge’s ‘Re-membering’?
The exhibition is on view through October 24, 2026, at Lévy Gorvy Dayan, 19 E. 64th Street, New York City.
What is new in this exhibition?
It introduces five new paintings and Mathenge’s first publicly exhibited sculptures, expanding a series she began in 2024.
What does the title ‘Re-membering’ mean?
Drawn from Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s 2009 book, it refers to the active gathering and reassembly of what has been fragmented — cultural memory, inherited forms, and histories — rather than simple recall.
Who helped make the sculptures?
According to Design Milk, the carved doorframe was made by artisans in Malindi, Kenya, while community members and the artist’s family contributed to the macramé textile and the knitted garment sculpture.
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