Everlyn Nicodemus review — brave artworks burst with joy and wisdom

In our rather cynical and manipulated times, enchantment, wonder, joy and sheer unadulterated talent seem rare. Genuine surprise and being swept off one’s feet seldom occur.

The name Everlyn Nicodemus, an artist born in Kilimanjaro, Tanzania, in 1954, may be unfamiliar to most. However, her work, carried out with determination — and despite a 25-year hiatus — deserves all the accolades mentioned above and more.

Nicodemus’s journey from rural east Africa to Scotland, with various interludes in Sweden and elsewhere, has been long, not only physically but also emotionally and intellectually.

She studied anthropology after moving to Sweden in the early 1970s, and was drawn to creating her own artwork. At the same time, she deeply questioned the western colonialist mindset of anthropologists in Europe and beyond. Who should study, judge and categorise whom, and why?

Parallel to her artistic development, she felt compelled to begin academic work. “I became an art historian out of necessity … I found there was very little written about African modern artists,” she said. In 1983 she married the Swedish art critic Kristian Romare with whom she collaborated on research and writing.

This chronological show, starting around 1980, is packed with colourful, highly sensory images. It offers both a visceral and intellectual experience, giving you something to feel as well as think about.

What you feel is the pain, agony and repression of a black woman in both African and European contexts. One striking image, After the Birth (1980), depicts a woman lying down with a child beside her. Painted in a simplified (but not naive) fashion in ochres, browns, and earth tones on a shroud-like blanket fashioned from tree bark, it conveys the conflicting feelings of motherhood — fragility, tenderness, and great strength.

Another work, Gynaecologist’s Chair (1983), shows a woman undergoing an examination. Her face is not visible while a male presence invades her most private spaces. It’s an almost universal experience for women, conveying the humiliation and vulnerability of such moments. The powerful Self Portrait, Akersberga (1982) conveys the multiple identities and conflicting emotions of the artist in a contemporaneous, fundamentally racist society.

Nicodemus’s most recent body of work has burst forth with the wisdom of experience and the joy of life. In the muted light of a large gallery space, these images seem to sing and zing off the walls. Religious imagery is used, not in a devotional sense, but in recognition of the European Christianising project — just one of the legacies of colonialism Nicodemus critiques in her passionate work.

Elsewhere, sculptural objects formed from wire netting and anthropomorphic forms speak to the artist’s experience of being caged, yet resonate with universal concerns.

Nicodemus is an artist for our times — brave, outspoken and determined. Her work carries an urgent, impassioned message for us all.

Given its customary institutional caution, the venue is to be congratulated for bringing the work of this relatively unknown artist to public attention.

Until May 25, 2025