KILMANY-JO LIVERSAGE

KILMANY-JO LIVERSAGE

30 January - 28 February 2026

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Everard Read London is delighted to present an exhibition of new paintings by South African artist, Kilmany-Jo Liversage. Taking inspiration from pop culture, fashion and a range of social media platforms, this new body of work follows Liversage’s solo exhibition at Oliewenhuis Art Museum, South Africa in October 2025.

Spray paint is Liversage’s medium of choice which she assuredly deploys, along with acrylics, to challenge the traditional delineations between fine art and street art culture. Fusing Renaissance portraiture with a strident urban sensibility, what emerges from her studio are penetrating portraits and unruly floral still lifes in psychedelic palettes of luminous pinks, blues and fluorescent yellows and oranges. Liversage’s focus is on “the here and now, on inner-city sites of both decay and gentrification, where the tag, squiggle and scrawl of graffiti carry as much gravitas and value as the high art of her forebears.”*

Although Liversage has executed numerous murals in various cities around the world, including a collaborative large-scale canvas which was exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 2013, she does not consider herself a street artist. Operating within the framework of ‘urban contemporary’, Liversage incorporates aspects of street art into her practice - considerable scale, a predilection for working outside and the custom of tagging - but she trained as a fine artist and painting is her committed pursuit.

Liversage remains faithful to Renaissance standards of portraiture, working within the established canon and considering the very same compositional considerations as the Old Masters. But her work embraces the spontaneity of mark-making and the confidence of her spraying and dripping veers far outside traditional patriarchal lines.

“I feel strongly about the role women play in our society and am interested in portraying the strength and Femme fatalism of women in my portraits and still-lifes. The role of matriarch has gained impetus through the digital-age. Empowerment, transformation and a greater emphasis on gender-equality has created a global shift in how femininity is perceived and how contemporary women are portrayed.”

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_{*Hazel Friedman, February 2020, essay entitled The Art of Discontent for the exhibition Against Interpretation, Everard Read London, June 2020
Artist portrait (c) Michael Hall Photography}