Moki Cherry was a Swedish artist who lived between 1943 and 2009 and who made a name for herself initially through a two-decades long artistic collaboration with her husband, the Jazz musician Don Cherry, and then later as an artist in her own right, developing an expansive and collaborative practice across textile, sculpture, painting, drawing, writing, collage, and video. As a mother -  her children are the musicians Neneh Cherry and Eagle Eye Cherry - she found a way of working her art around running a household, saying, “I survived by taking a creative attitude to daily life and chores." An exhibition of her work at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in London celebrates Cherry’s exploration of where art and life meet, her collaborative and interdisciplinary practice, and her inventive resolve in the face of gendered challenges working both as an artist and mother.  

ICA director Bengi Ünsal explains why she decided to feature a Moki Cherry show, and Naima Karlsson, Moki’s granddaughter and an archivist and coordinator for the Estate of Moki Cherry and Cherry Archive, delves into their personal relationship, what she was like as a person, her individualistic beliefs and how it all fed into her work.

Further reading:

https://mokicherry.com/