Visual Artist | Photography
Joel Lukhovi (b.1989) is a Kenyan based visual artist working primarily with lens-based media. In his contact with photography, he has since ventured successfully into multiple forms of the practice. As an engineering student, his artistic bent pushed him to study and eventually earn a (BA) major in literature at the University of Nairobi.
His practice predominantly combines on photography and literature with a gradual embrace of emerging and mixed media. He has since incorporated a contextual approach in his creations. His ideal work imagines at transitions and parallels of society and meanings of the ever-changing spaces.
Joel is a fellow at the Sasa Nairobi Art Fellowship 2024/25 facilitated by Goethe Institut – Kenya. His work questions diverse happenings, which he has been exploring with pinhole and film photography as alternative means of photo making in the contemporary sphere. Besides, family histories and interrelation of space and matter remain a focal point in his archival work.
This comes to address formations and deconstructions as to what makes an image derive its meaning. The use of pinholes and film brings to light a set of materials; that give photographs purpose of existence. His work has now taken a form of social commentary, covering patterns of everyday life. Often a time, they are references of self-discovery or rather imagined experiments.
Having been on artistic/curatorial residencies and workshops in Nairobi and beyond, a growing aspect of his practice is the ability to curate interventions that promote exchanges across traditional and modern platforms. His use of shapes, objects and patterns become visual elements that define his work.
In 2016 at the British Institute in Eastern Africa (BIEA) Joel explored the politics of food, ways food has, and continues to form, and give shape to multiple, contradictory, sensorial experiences of and insights into urban living.
To this effect he is working on a duo project dubbed African Cityzens, a trans continental photography journey that explores trans city movement and spatial exchanges through photography. The emphasis of the collective journey allows the artist to engage and create works that often reflect an individual approach in new spaces. The in-movement project has traveled across eastern and southern Africa regions with a special presentation at the 2017 Lagos Photo Festival.
Joel employs a lot of emphasis on the importance of technique, process and presentation of his work. In 2023; image & exploration Joel showcased family archival work at Goethe Institut that informed of the life and journey of photo albums with a personal feel. It explored the purpose and role of photographs in an African family setting. Besides, it aimed at formulating alternative ways through which photographic material may be approached.
Presently, Joel is on an associate curatorial residency at FOAM museum of photography in Amsterdam, Netherlands. He is also a guest lecturer at Katho NRW University in Paderborn, Germany. His ongoing work is on isolation and alternative use of art spaces, where he is the founder of Nairobi Beyond, festival of photography.
Lukhovi’s work has been exhibited and collected widely and included in several publications in Kenya and Europe. He continues to collaborate with artists, educators and cultural institutions extensively. To date Joel is a global recipient of the Intercultural Encounters, organized by the ministry of Foreign Affairs & International Cooperation – Republic of Austria.
His titled works Own Form organized by afrikultur.org featured as a solo exhibition at the multicultural centre in Stockholm – Sweden. The photographic works remain a permanent collection of the organization.
As a photo artist, Joel continues to be in a unique position to respond, visualize and interpret the world around him artfully grappling with social, cultural, political and personal topics.