In Fragments of Becoming, Harrison Karanja (Scopt) undertakes a profound examination of the self in motion — fragmented, shifting, and continuously redefined. Through this emotionally layered body of work, he investigates tensions between memory, perception, and identity, presenting an intimate visual narrative of what it means to live in transition or better still to be in motion.
At the heart of this exhibition lies the pursuit of becoming — not as a destination, but as a condition. Karanja’s canvases echo with fragmented voices of experience, belonging, myth, and resilience. Each figure is caught mid-gesture, suspended between who they were and who they might yet become. These are not final statements, but emotional landscapes of moments of rupture, silence, and quiet metamorphosis.
Rooted in lived Kenyan realities and ancestral memory, his layered compositions explore how individuals carry forward both visible and invisible histories. Fragments of text, color, gesture, and distortion act as emotional residue tracing the paths of solitude, solidarity, displacement, and reclamation. The Journey Out contemplates the ache of departure and self-reinvention, while Mumbi’s Leap of Faith invokes human strength and generational endurance.
Guided by Scoptism, Karanja’s philosophy of creative multiplicity and conceptual freedom, the works defy singular categorization. There is no fixed form, only rupture, rhythm, and the possibility of reassembly. Fragments of Becoming invites viewers into this space by bridging the personal and the symbolic, the real and the remembered.
Across large-scale canvases, viewers encounter recurring tensions: motion versus stillness, power against fragility, the mythic versus the mundane. The blurred figures, distorted anatomy, and embedded text speak not only to psychological fragmentation but also to cultural and spiritual negotiation. These visual disruptions serve as both concealment and revelation—mirroring the instability of contemporary life in postcolonial, rapidly urbanizing Kenya, and the global condition of constant becoming.