Dunga, Before Light, 2021. Oil on canvas.
Lot 1

Achieng Oduya (b. 1979)

Dunga, Before Light, 2021

Oil on canvas

150 × 200 cm

Estimate KES 900,000–1,400,000

Bidding

Sold

KES 1,000,000

Hammer price. Buyer's premium of 20% and VAT on the premium are added.

How bidding works

Bids · 14

  1. KES 1,000,000 Paddle 400 In the room 00:45
  2. KES 950,000 Paddle 443 In the room 00:45
  3. KES 900,000 Paddle 375 In the room 00:45
  4. KES 850,000 Paddle 104 In the room 00:45
  5. KES 800,000 Paddle 184 In the room 00:45
  6. KES 750,000 Paddle 375 In the room 00:45
  7. KES 700,000 Paddle 493 In the room 00:45
  8. KES 650,000 Paddle 309 In the room 00:45
  9. KES 600,000 Paddle 344 In the room 00:45
  10. KES 550,000 Paddle 295 In the room 00:45
  11. KES 500,000 Paddle 386 In the room 00:45
  12. KES 480,000 Paddle 271 In the room 00:45
  13. KES 460,000 Paddle 404 In the room 00:45
  14. KES 440,000 Paddle 234 In the room 00:45

About the work

Oduya painted this from the shore at Dunga, the fishing beach outside Kisumu where she grew up watching the boats go out before dawn. The lake is a single band of cold silver under a violet sky, and one boat sits on the horizon like a mark of punctuation. The surface is built from thin, scraped layers, so the colours underneath come up through the grey like light through water.

Condition

Very good. Light rubbing to the tacking edges from an earlier frame. No retouching under ultraviolet light.

Provenance

Acquired from the artist by the present owner, Nairobi, 2022.

Exhibited

Nairobi, Umber House, Lake: New Paintings by Achieng Oduya, March 2022.

The artist

Oduya grew up in Kisumu and has painted Lake Victoria for twenty years, almost always from the shore and almost always at the edges of the day. Her paintings reduce the lake to bands of colour, built up in thin layers and scraped back so that earlier light shows through. She works in a converted garage in Lavington and returns to the lake every few months to make small gouache studies.

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