By Aiery
Uppity Africans is a series of twelve acrylic-on-canvas portraits by Nairobi painter Lisa Tomizuka. The title reclaims a slur once aimed at the African who refused to know their place — who dressed too well, spoke too plainly, wanted too much. Tomizuka wears the insult like jewellery. Her subjects meet your eye: adorned, luminous, unbothered, and quite deliberately above it. Commissioned outright by Aiery under the Just Do The Art campaign, it is her first presented body of work.
By Aiery
Uppity Africans is a series of twelve acrylic-on-canvas portraits by Nairobi painter Lisa Tomizuka. The title reclaims a slur once aimed at the African who refused to know their place — who dressed too well, spoke too plainly, wanted too much. Tomizuka wears the insult like jewellery. Her subjects meet your eye: adorned, luminous, unbothered, and quite deliberately above it. Commissioned outright by Aiery under the Just Do The Art campaign, it is her first presented body of work.
