Cave

Cave is one of the more dreamlike works by Michael Armitage. A man and a woman blow into what appears to be the rounded curves of an organic, unknown instrument. Their mixed breaths seems to give birth to life within a conch, as two figures form within the instrument in a swirl of colours. 
According to the title of this piece, the scene takes place in a cave, but the presence of the sky in the lower left corner deprives us of any real reference points. Neither the colours nor the forms represent a real event; they instead somewhat symbolically suggest the emergence of life through the fusion of spirits. 
The piece also alludes to the grottoes on the Laikipia Plateau in Kenya, a stronghold of Mau Mau resistance to the colonial regime, and it proclaims Africa as the original cradle of humanity, capable of breathing life back into the world.