2024
Iron Lady van de Bijlmer, Ode aan Hilly Axwijk,
Sculpture
2024
Sculpture
Painting
Painting
Gouache / Aquarel
2023
Painting
Painting
Painting
Gouache / Aquarel
Gouache / Aquarel
Gouache / Aquarel
Gouache / Aquarel
Painting
Painting
Gouache / Aquarel
Painting
2022
Sculpture
Iris Kensmil chose the title In My Father’s House as homage to the book by Anil Ramdas. Her house offers a personal interpretation of the dilemmas raised in his volume. For this installation, Iris Kensmil works from memories of her childhood in Suriname, where various beliefs and Winti[2] rituals and taboos were part of her family tradition. She takes a Black feminist perspective in her translation of the role of memory and ritual into a presentation that creates space for all manner of references and connections with other themes in her work.
Iris Kensmil is well known for her topical work about those engaged in the struggle for a future created by and for Black people, about the battle for freedom and emancipation from slavery, and about equality. In her perspective on the future, she does not focus on the past, but on what her protagonists do or did with it. By making these choices, they create their own identity and become important to us.
Another common thread of sisterhood and brotherhood runs through Iris Kensmil’s work. One can recognize the struggle for freedom and equality in her work, but she also refers to the ideas of Marcus Garvey and other advocates of Black self-determination in segregation. These topics represent the possibility for Black people working on the future to share together feelings based on their shared experiences and traditions; of being at home in one’s father’s house.
Painting
Gouache / Aquarel
Painting
Painting
2021
Installation
Painting
Painting
Painting
Painting
Painting
Painting
Painting
Painting
Painting
Installation
Painting
Gouache / Aquarel
Gouache / Aquarel
Gouache / Aquarel
Gouache / Aquarel
Gouache / Aquarel
Painting
2020
Painting
Painting
Installation
Painting
Painting
Painting
Painting
Painting
Painting
Painting
Painting
Painting
Painting
Painting
2019
Installation
Installation
Installation
Installation
Installation
Installation
Painting
Painting
Painting
Painting
Painting
Painting
2018
Painting
Painting
Painting
Gouache / Aquarel
Drawing
Drawing
Drawing
Drawing
Painting
Painting
Painting
Painting
2017
Painting
Drawing
Drawing
Drawing
Painting
Painting
Drawing
Drawing
Installation
“Dutch artist Iris Kensmil has made a new work for the Van Abbemuseum’s collection. Kensmil combines abstract patterns, classical portraiture and references from politics and literature that resonate with her position as a Black artist.
The installation includes a series of publications from key figures within what Kensmil calls Black Modernity. All of these books are available to read in our Library. In the installation, these books are accompanied by a series of drawings, large and small, which reflect on the historic position of the back subject within emancipatory politics, art history, hiphop and the anti racist and Black Lives Matter protests which have recently gained increasing visibility and traction. For Kensmil her style of painting and use of portraiture has a specific function. By bringing them into the European art museum she gives Black individuals, who have had a formative historic role, their place in art history.
Study in Black Modernity was commissioned as part of Becoming More, a ten-day caucus event comprising lectures, performances, screenings, commissions, discussions and food hosted by the Van Abbemuseum. Kensmil has been invited along with other artists to develop and co-author the caucus. Drawing on previously neglected histories and generating new work with promising artists in the Netherlands stimulates the Van Abbe to take part in a broader dialogue as a catalyst for change. In this context Iris Kensmil has convened the programme of the opening on Thursday 18 May (lecture by Gloria Wekker) an the programme On experiences and Choices on Friday 19 May.”
Drawing
Drawing
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2016
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Drawing
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2015
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Installation
Drawing
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Drawing
Drawing
Drawing
Drawing
Drawing
Drawing
2014
Drawing
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Drawing
Drawing
Drawing
2013
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Sculpture
2012
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2011
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Drawing
2010
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Installation
2009
2008
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Drawing
2007
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Installation
Drawing
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Installation
2006
Drawing
2004
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2003
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2002
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2000
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