Through his beautiful and disconcerting works depicting carefree sunny days beside exclusive suburban pools, Lusaka-born, Britain-based painter Jonathan Wateridge (b.1972) revisits his own childhood in post-independence Zambia in the 1970s and ’80s, exploring issues of White privilege and Black disenfranchisement in post-colonial Africa. Jonathan Wateridge was born in Lusaka, Zambia, in 1972. Today he lives and works in Norfolk, UK. This, the artist’s first trade monograph, presents two significant bodies of work, ‘Enclave’ and ‘Expatria’. In these series, Wateridge returns to his childhood memories of growing up within the privileged white ex-pat communities of Zambia in the 1970s and 1980s, during the early years of the country’s independence from British rule. ‘Having grown up in an apparent world of sunshine and suburban pools, I sought to overlap those aspects of my formative experiences with the wider issues of the West’s post-colonial role,’ Wateridge has stated. His recent paintings, produced with the artist’s characteristic virtuosity and based on elaborate studio stage sets replete with a varied cast of actors, also seek to explore more lyrical figurative languages offered by the medium, adding to the uneasy dynamics that haunt these memorable and accomplished works.

This hardback monograph, designed by Peter B. Willberg, has been edited and authored by London-based independent curator, writer and art consultant Mark Sanders. The publication features an essay by Dr Gilda Williams, a London correspondent for Artforum who also teaches art writing on the MFA Curating programme at Goldsmiths College, University of London. Presenting over 130 paintings and details, this 200-page monograph is essential reading for anybody passionate about contemporary painting, and makes a valuable contribution to discussion of the post-colonial condition in the visual arts.