‘In This Valley of Dying Stars’: Jess Atieno’s meditation on memory and modernity

By

Michael Muyoma

Contributor

Jess Atieno’s work at the African Arts Gallery, where she is holding an exhibition titled In This Valley of Dying Stars, sticks out not just because of how immersed in the black culture her inspiration is, but mostly because of the unique nature of her print work.

She uses serigraphy, a manual multilayered process involving the use of a stencil-based printing technique where ink is pushed through a fine mesh screen onto a substrate to create dotted, colourful images with a distinctive visual texture unique from the other traditional printing techniques.