Outlook:

From

care

home

shifts

to

the

world’s

greatest

galleries

Tanzanian-born artist Everlyn Nicodemus is interviewed by BBC's Mobeen Azhar for Outlook.

Born in the foothills of Mount Kilamanjaro in Tanzania in 1954, Everlyn Nicodemus was brought up to know her worth – her grandmother told her she wasn't any less important than a man. Everlyn took that self-belief forward when she moved to Sweden aged 19, where she married and had a baby, and experienced racism for the first time. Craving a trip home, she returned to Tanzania in her 20s and picked up a paintbrush. Instantly, she fell in love with painting and did it whenever she could – fitting it in between raising a child, working and studying. She painted quietly for decades in countries across Europe before eventually settling in Scotland's capital city Edinburgh. Years later when she was widowed and in her 60s, Everlyn was struggling financially – working shifts in a nursing home and relying on foodbanks to get by. Until an unexpected phone call from a London-based gallery changed Everlyn’s life almost overnight, transforming the trajectory of her career. Now, Everlyn’s art has hung in some of the most renowned galleries in the world, including the Pompidou in Paris and MoMA in New York. And in 2022, one of Everlyn’s paintings became the first self-portrait by a black female artist to be acquired by the UK’s prestigious National Portrait Gallery.