RECONSTRUCTED IDENTITIES

Reconstructed Identities is the latest iteration of Mbugua’s ongoing exploration of memory, resilience and the human spirit. In this body of work, he delves into themes of trauma and reconstruction, drawing inspiration from two ancient techniques: stained glass and kintsugi, the Japanese art of mending broken pottery with gold, emphasizing rather than concealing the cracks.

Staying true to his signature pointillist technique, Mbugua continues to portray his subjects against vibrant backdrops of hand-painted pictogram patterns on acrylic sheets. Much like stained glass, which has long been used to narrate sacred stories and preserve cultural memory, Mbugua’s paintings celebrate the intimate stories of friendship and daily life.

What sets this series apart is a radical transformation of process. The artist cuts his painted acrylic sheets into fragments and reassembles them using oxidised wire, allowing rupture and repair to become a visible part of the artwork’s structure. In doing so, he embraces the kintsugi philosophy: that breakage and restoration are not just events but integral chapters in an object’s history.

By deliberately cutting, fragmenting, and reassembling his painted surfaces, Mbugua constructs a visual language of rupture and repair that echoes the emotional and psychological processes of lived experience. This act becomes more than a formal gesture; it is a conceptual framework through which the artist examines how identities are shaped not in spite of fracture but through it. In these reconstructed surfaces, repair is not a return to wholeness but an affirmation of endurance, transformation and the beauty that emerges from reconstruction.