Artist Christina Kimeze: Painting the Texture of Memory

”I just love paint, really.” For artist Christina Kimeze, painting begins with a physical attraction to the medium itself. Through colour, layered materials, and recurring motifs, she transforms personal experiences into visual worlds. From her London studio, Christina Kimeze builds her paintings on an unusual surface: a suede-like board that sits somewhere between velvet and canvas. Coming from a background in biology, she has developed a highly experimental approach in her painting practice. Mixing oil paint, acrylics, pastels, and other materials in search of textures that can hold memory, emotions and experiences: “I’m often trying to push against how materials are traditionally used,” she explains: “Using unusual materials to try and flesh out ideas, build other worlds in the paintings.” Memory is central to Christina Kimeze’s practice. Drawing on personal experiences, family history, and visits to Uganda, where her father was born, she searches for visual forms that can evoke the way memories can feel rather than depict them. Kimeze wants to “give visual form to a memory,” she says, describing an interest in what “the texture of that is, what the smell of that was.” Many of her paintings develop through repetition. Motifs such as leaves, architectural forms, and skaters reappear and gradually transform, moving between representation and abstraction. This process mirrors the act of remembering itself: traces of images return, shift and become something new. “In all honesty, I make my work for myself,” she says, though she still hopes that people will take something from it. Christina Kimeze (b. 1986, UK) received a postgraduate degree from The Royal Drawing School in London, UK, and in 2022, she was awarded the Sir Denis Mahon Award. Before this, Kimeze completed an undergraduate degree in Biological Sciences from the University of Oxford, UK. Kimeze’s recent exhibitions include ‘Between Wood and Wheel,’ South London Gallery, London, UK (2025); ‘Long loops,’ Hauser & Wirth, Los Angeles CA (2025); ‘Women & Freud: patients, pioneers, artists,’ Freud Museum, London, UK (2024); ‘Drawing Biennial 2024,’ Drawing Room, London, UK (2024); ‘Soulscapes,’ Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, UK (2024); ‘Present Tense,’ Hauser and Wirth Somerset, Bruton, UK (2024); ‘Something other than the world might know,’ White Cube, Paris, France (2023); ‘Interior,’ Michael Werner Gallery, London, UK (2023); and ‘The Great Women Artists IV,’ Residency at Palazzo Monti, Brescia, Italy (2022). Christina Kimeze was interviewed by Roxanne Bagheshirin Lærkesen in her London studio in April 2026. Camera: Rasmus Quistgaard Edited and produced by Roxanne Bagheshirin Lærkesen Music via Upright: Kora Kora by John Etkin-Bell and Dominique Levack Kora Ballad by Josh Doughty Floating Away by Denis Levaillant Copyright: Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2026 Louisiana Channel is supported by Den A.P. Møllerske Støttefond. Subscribe to our channel for more videos on art: thelouisianachannel FOLLOW US HERE: Website: http://channel.louisiana.dk Instagram: Instagram: louisianachannel Facebook: Facebook: LouisianaChannel