Michael Armitage RA Elect, The Long Walk Home (Xala)

The Long Walk Home (Xala), 2020

Michael Armitage RA Elect (b. 1984)

RA Collection: Art

The Long Walk Home (Xala) reimagines a scene from the 1975 film Xala by Senegalese filmmaker Ousmane Sembène in which a group of beggars are driven into the desert by police. Armitage shows two of the group making their way back from the desert, one carrying the other.

Armitage is best known as a painter but is also a printmaker, often producing lithographs in multiple colours like this example. This impression is an artist's proof (number 2 of an edition of 10) and is signed by the artist on the verso. An impression of the print was shown in the RA Summer Exhibition 2021 in Gallery VII.

Armitage was born in Kenya and works between Nairobi and London. Studying first at the Slade he later moved to the Royal Academy Schools, graduating in 2010. His colourful, dreamlike paintings play with visual narratives and challenge cultural assumptions, exploring politics, history, civil unrest and sexuality.

Object details

Title
The Long Walk Home (Xala)
Artist/designer
Date
2020
Object type
Print
Copyright owner
Medium
Seven colour lithograph on somerset warm white velvet paper 400 msg
Dimensions

595 mm x 330 mm

Collection
Royal Academy of Arts
Object number
22/55
Acquisition
Given by Michael Armitage RA Elect 10/02/2022
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