Kay Gasei was born in Lusaka, Zambia in 1991, moved to England shortly after his birth and studied Illustration at Oxford Brookes University, graduating in 2014. He is a mixed media artist, illustrator and designer based in London whose practice explores culture, mythology and history — Greek mythology, African folktales and Asian narratives — through symbolism, recurring motifs and nondescript characters who act out these stories in abstract spaces. He cites Goya and Hogarth as influences for their narrative precision and meticulous detail. His recurring characters include Od (a protagonist developed during his university years), pilgrim-like faceless figures, and the black figure that emerged from a 2016 BLM commission — a starkly different presence from his earlier white-line hedonist figures, representing acute consciousness and connection to suffering. In his own words: “I’m into stories, myths, all the minutiae that contribute to the tapestry of life, stuff init.”
