Jackie Karuti is an artist based in Nairobi, Kenya. Her work employs the use of drawing, the moving image and performance to generate thought and her practice is founded on ideas around knowledge production & the depths of possibility enabled by radical imagination. 

Karuti was the recipient of the Follow Fluxus-After Fluxus scholarship in 2021 and the Henrike Grohs Award in 2020 which saw the release of her debut monograph Notes Movement Method published by Mousse. She is an alumnus of Àsìko, Lagos (2012), the roaming Pan African art school established by the late Bisi Silva to redress the frequently outdated or non-existent artistic and curatorial curricula at tertiary institutions across Africa.

Recent solo exhibitions include Body Machine Location (2023) at Kunsthalle Bern, Switzerland, Division: Before Line/ After Image (2023) at the Goethe Institut, Nairobi and Shapeshifting & the Impossibility of Weathered Wood (2021) at Nassauischer Kunstverein Wiesbaden, Germany.

She has participated in major art events such as the Aichi Triennale, Japan (2022), Lofoten International Art Festival, Norway (2019) and the Dak’Art Biennale, Senegal (2018). Select group exhibitions and talks include Bergen Centre for Electronic Arts, Norway (2021), Performing Arts Forum, France (2021), SAVVY Contemporary, Germany (2018), and Circle Art Gallery, Nairobi (2018) among others.

Select residences include Ichinomiya City, Japan, Nassauischer Kunstverein, Wiesbaden, WIELS Contemporary Art Center, Brussels, 32º East, Kampala, The Bag Factory, Johannesburg and Gasworks, London. Karuti’s work is also held in various private collections.

Other projects that respond to her practice include convening the Artists’ cinema, video and experimental film program-Nairobi (2022-ongoing), programming the Out Film Festival-Nairobi (2016-2019), In the Case of Books (2013-ongoing) and several other collaborations.