Installation view of Christina Kimeze: Between Wood and Wheel, 2025 at South London Gallery. Photo: Andy Stagg
Christina Kimeze’s exhibition Between Wood and Wheel at the SLG is an exploration of movement, freedom, and being between different states of being.
Here are five key things to look out for when you visit!
Roller Skating: Moving Between Two Worlds
The title of the exhibition, Between Wood and Wheel, was taken from a line in the poem, Night at the Roller Palace by January Gill O’Neil, which reads: ‘you are the spark between wood and wheel’.
Kimeze was originally inspired by the resurgent popularity of roller skating in Black communities, seeing it as a metaphor for flight and freedom. In some of her more recent paintings, she captures the sensation of gliding through space, while also reflecting on the tension of being between two places: grounded yet soaring.
Kimeze says: “I also like the reference to wood, which is solid and static, in contrast to the circular form of the wheel which is associated with movement. It evokes an idea of being sandwiched between two different, somewhat competing, things; the leaden and the airborne in dialogue with one another.”
Christina Kimeze, Night Skating (I), 2024. © Christina Kimeze, courtesy of the artist.
Photo: Matthew Hollow.
First Ever Textile Work
For the first time, Kimeze has expanded her practice beyond painting to create a textile work. In a collaboration with Dovecot Studios in Edinburgh, a tapestry was created that is a large-scale version of one of her paintings. Don’t miss this exciting opportunity to see how Kimeze’s soft, dreamlike figures translate into woven woollen threads, giving visitors a new way to experience her work.
Taking inspiration from film
Kimeze often paints from film stills. In her exhibition at the SLG, you can see the influence of cinema in some of her works on paper in the Fire Station. These works capture fleeting moments of movement.
When researching her new series of paintings, Kimeze watched several American films about roller skating. She took inspiration from The People Could Fly by the director Imani Dennison, a documentary about the history of Black spaces in Louisville from the 1960s to mid 2000s as well as Lauren Gee’s Dancing On Road, 2024, which celebrates the Black British female roller-skating community.
Some of the works in the SLG’s exhibition were directly drawn from the film Get Rollin’ by J. Terrance Mitchell, which showcases the New York City roller dancing scene in 1979.
Starting with a Feeling
Christina Kimeze’s process is all about capturing a feeling. She starts her paintings with a sense of emotion. Her paintings create a mood, rather than depicting specific, real places.
Looking is a process of discovery and the figures in Kimeze’s paintings seem to emerge gradually in such a way as to seem ghostly and dreamlike.
These paintings depict ungraspable, in-between spaces and, in the artist’s words, ‘the idea of existing between two emotional spaces and the feelings of “otherness” that can arise from this space’.
Christina Kimeze Soaring (III), 2024. © Christina Kimeze, image courtesy of the artist.
Photo: Matthew Hollow
The Power of Materials
The texture in Kimeze’s work is unique. She layers dry chalks, oil pastels, and wet paint onto suede matboard, paper, and canvas, giving her paintings a soft, velvet-like appearance.
The layering of different textures also adds to the sense of movement captured in her larger paintings. The materials become an essential part of the message—expressing the sense of flight as well as introspection.
Find out more about Kimeze’s work in our exhibition tour with academic, writer and broadcaster Emma Dabiri.
Christina Kimeze: Between Wood and Wheel is free to visit at the SLG from 31 January – 11 May 2025.
The exhibition is accompanied by an illustrated catalogue. Buy the publication online now.