Contemporary artist Joshua Mochache’s two series Event Horizon and Dark Side of the Moon explore the relationship between cosmology, spirituality, perception, memory and climate change.

Event Horizon runs at Circle Art Gallery in Nairobi as a trio exhibition with artists Vincent Kimeu and Edwin Thuo from August 16 to September 5.

The two series are inspired by pareidolia, tendency to recognise familiar forms in abstract or ambiguous images, Mochache says that the works invite viewers to discover landscapes that are familiar and alive.

Event Horizon was inspired by looking at Nairobi, where the city meets what’s left of green spaces.   

“I started noticing that if you look long enough, the landscape begins to shift. Trees become figures. Shadows become shapes. That’s pareidolia. I didn’t invent it; I just noticed it happening,” he says.

He was also reading about black holes, and he became interested in the event horizon, the boundary beyond which nothing can escape, not even light. For him, the concept felt like a metaphor for transformation and the moments in life when a person crosses a threshold from which there is no return. He started painting those thresholds.

He chose the title Event Horizon to depict this idea of an edge where one thing ends and another begins. While it is scientific, Mochache sees the concept as just as spiritual.

“Event Horizon is the point of no return. The moment you cross into something new and you can’t go back is a turning point. For me, it’s also a spiritual space between death and rebirth, between what was and what could be. I don’t think of it as an end. I think of it as a transformation,” he says.

He says that another series titled Dark Side of the Moon is not about the edge. It’s about what has always been there but rarely looked at. The part of the landscape that watches back.

“These works came from a place of silence, not the absence of noise, but the kind of silence that hums like electricity. The kind you feel when something is watching, waiting, holding space for you,” he explains.

Working with pastels and watercolours, he slowed down and paid attention differently. The title reflects his interest in the unseen side of things.

“The Dark Side of the Moon represents the unseen side of things. The part of the landscape that doesn’t ask for attention but holds everything anyway. It’s also about silence, the kind that isn’t empty but is full of presence and energy. The watchers live there,” he says.

Even though the two series differ in mood and material, both are about attention. Event Horizon examines cosmology and transformation, death, rebirth, and the pull of the unknown, while Dark Side of the Moon is about stillness, presence, and the quiet electric charge of being watched.  

Mochache describes Event Horizon as the more cosmic of the two series, exploring the universe, gravity, light and the unknown. Its acrylic palette is bruised and strange greens, while heavy shadows create an unsettling atmosphere.

Dark Side of the Moon, he says, is softer and more internal. The palette are greys, blues, and faded earth, and the work is more deliberate. The use of pastels and watercolours allows for a slower and more deliberate process.

“Both series are rooted in the same practice of looking long enough for something to appear. In Event Horizon, it’s the threshold of the black hole. In Dark Side of the Moon, it’s the threshold between seen and unseen, noise and silence,” he says.

Landscape is the foundation for both bodies of work, but Mochache is less interested in accurately representing specific places than in using landscape as a container for memory. It is always shifting, always slightly wrong because it’s not about geography. It is about attention.

Memory, he adds, is visible through colour and shadow. Memory is the texture; the bruises are in the colour; and the weight is in the shadows. He isn’t painting what he sees; he paints what he remembers feeling when he saw it.

Pareidolia, he says, is the engine behind the paintings, deliberately creating ambiguous forms that encourage viewers to find their own meanings.

“Pareidolia is the tendency of the brain trying to find meaning where there is none. The shapes in my paintings aren’t random. They’re invitations. If you look long enough, you’ll see something. Whether it’s a figure, a watcher, or yourself,” he says.

He starts his work with attention rather than a plan. The figures and shapes emerge through layers of paint and pastel. The more he layers, the more appears. He says that it is like watching something surface from deep water.

The recurring forms in his works are the “watchers”, which Mochache describes not as people or spirits but as presences.

“They don’t judge. They don’t speak. They just stay. I think of them as companions, the kind of company you find when you’re alone long enough to notice,” he says.

Buddhist ideas of attention and interconnectedness have also influenced the works. He says that Buddhism helped him connect his interest in science with his understanding that humans are not separate from nature.

This idea also informs his interest in cosmology. He points to the scientific understanding that the elements that make up the human body are also found throughout the natural world and the universe.

“The atoms in my body are the same atoms in the trees I paint. There’s no separation. That’s not poetry, it’s physics,” he says.

Mochache says that this understanding changed the way he approached painting. He doesn’t document nature; he sees himself as nature.

“I want viewers to slow down. I want them to look long enough for something to emerge, even if it’s just a feeling. I don’t want them to understand the work. I want them to feel it. The work is a mirror. What you see in it is what you brought,” he says.

Together, Event Horizon and Dark Side of the Moon also mark a shift in his practice, from representation towards presence.

“My earlier work was about what I saw. These series are about what I felt while I was seeing. I’m less interested in the shapes now and more interested in what they hold,” he says.

Mochache is a contemporary artist working primarily with acrylic, watercolour and pastel. His practice explores the quiet, electric silence of landscapes that hold memory and the shapes that emerge when one looks long enough, drawing on ideas of pareidolia and Buddhist attention.

His work has been exhibited at Circle Art Gallery, Myrna Art Direction, Ardhi Gallery, GoDown Arts Centre, Village Market, the National Museum of Kenya, the International School of Kenya and the Iran Cultural Centre.