Artist Esther Litali, also known as Esther KBG 254, presents Held in Time, a solo exhibition opening on 23 May and running until June 30.
Through a series of 20 paintings, Litali creates classic and vintage automobiles to explore nostalgia, history, identity, memory, and emotion.
The exhibition stems from her long-established fascination that stems from childhood memories. She recalls that her first family’s first car was a vintage Fiat, an experience that influences her artistic imagination before the idea develops into a body of work.
“I realised there was a whole community that loved vintage cars. It was something planted when I was younger, and it has grown into this exhibition,” she says.
The title Held in Time is about the age of the vehicles and the act of preserving fleeting moments through painting. She captures the cars produced many years ago that have changed.
Her paintings are informed by extensive conversations with the owners of the vehicles she depicts. Having painted cars for more than eight years, Held in Time is the first time this work has been brought together in a solo exhibition format.
Through conversations, Litali gets fragments of family history, attachment, personality, and memory, with the works incorporating landscapes, patterns, and details connected to the owners’ lives.
“When I talk to them, I listen to the small things. Someone will tell me this is a hobby they share with their son or daughter, or that the car was passed down from their father,” she says.
One of the works, titled Milk and Honey, centres on a Rolls-Royce once used to transport milk from Kiambu during the post-colonial period of the early 1990s. The painting incorporates landscapes inspired by Kiambu and captures social and historical memory.
Another painting, The Watcher, pairs a cat with a Jaguar car to portray the parallels between the elegance of the animal and the vehicle. In The Legendary Spider, Litali references an Alfa Romeo Spider once owned by the late Bob Dewar, founder of the Concours d’Elegance in Kenya, before it was passed on to the event’s current chairperson.
Another piece, Fig and Olive, is inspired by a restaurant connected to the car owner. She uses patterns from the restaurant’s chairs in the background of the painting and creates references that can only be fully recognised by those familiar with the story behind the work.
“I did not want to make it too specific to the owners. I wanted the public to also connect with the work and see themselves in it,” she says.
She says her understanding of vintage automobiles grew after attending Concours d’Elegance events, where conversations with collectors showed how personal these vehicles are.
She says that people do not buy cars for everyday use, but they become prized, almost like artworks. There is always a story behind them.
The exhibition also thinks about questions of preservation and generational legacy. She says the project changed how she thinks about the objects people choose to carry forward through time.
“When I think about memory and preservation now, I think generationally. I think about what I would want my children and grandchildren to inherit,” she says.
She adds that she wants to encourage people to feel inspired to pursue excellence in what they do, other than buying functional things but beautiful things too.