Lubaina Himid

Make Do and Mend presents two new bodies of work by Lubaina Himid, the recipient of the 2024 Suzanne Deal Booth / FLAG Art Foundation Prize: a suite of Strategy paintings that depict Black men and women seated around tables featuring different configurations of objects-in each case, imagining a specific problem to be solved; and an arrangement of Aunties, sixty-four plank paintings, which build on her previous plank works that evoke the form of funerary objects from East Africa. Throughout a career spanning four decades, Lubaina Himid, a self-described "painter and cultural activist," has expanded the possibilities of storytelling through painting as a means of exploring the legacy of British colonialism and its effects on marginalized peoples. Best known for an innovative approach to painting and social engagement, Himid has actively made space for the expression and recognition of the Black experience and women's creativity-playing a pivotal role in the British Black Arts movement in the 1980s and becoming the first Black woman to win the Turner Prize in 2017. Rooted in personal experience, Himid's practice traces childhood memories, such as joining her mother, a textile designer, on trips to clothing and fabric stores. The translation of these experiences is often found in the artist's paintings and in installations woven with cultural heritage and found objects such as plates, discarded furniture, jelly molds, and newspapers. The two new bodies of work in Make Do and Mend were made specifically for the eponymous exhibitions at The Contemporary Austin and The FLAG Art Foundation.