By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 7 February 2019)
Lemek
Tompoika is the first Kenyan artist whose work has been selected to be part of
the new Ogilvy Africa initiative aimed at giving young African artists a broad
platform on which to share their artwork.
Located
inside Ogilvy’s global headquarters in Nairobi, Lemek’s collage art and
installation are scattered around/(hanging in) conference rooms and ‘open plan’
work spaces where the advertising firm’s own creative teams are hard at work.
Aiming to be supportive of Creativity in the broadest sense, the company’s CEO Mattieu Plassard says their artistic initiative, launched 24 February and named ‘Give’, is intent to ‘Give Time’ and ‘Give Space’ to support the arts. And not only in Kenya. With offices in 24 African countries, ‘Give’ will soon be launched in Dar es Salaam, Accra, Lagos and Lusaka as part of their CSR program to ‘give back’ to African communities that have inspired the firm to produce some of its finest creative work.
Lemek was
selected out of more than a dozen local artists who responded to a call that
Ogilvy sent out. His work was chosen, says Mr Plassard, because the themes seen
in his art and the cultural tensions he addressed are especially relevant and
though-provoking.
Lemek's Places, Paths and Red Tie
Coming from
the Maasai community, Lemek was raised to be well aware of Maasai culture and
traditions. But at the same time, he received a Western education and doesn’t conform
to the common stereotypical perceptions of these nomadic people.
“Culture is
all about change,” he says in an interview at Ogilvy’s. “One doesn’t have to
wear the shukas or herd cattle to be a Maasai.” Nonetheless, he grapples with
issues associated with identity including stereotypes, status and the struggle
of being ‘in-between’ the traditional and modern lifestyles.
Lemek's Of Gods
Those deep
cultural contradictions/conflicts are what Mr Plassard says intrigued Ogilvy
about Lemek’s art, especially as he uses symbolism in surprising ways. For instance,
there are no shukas, dreadlocks or
ornamental beadwork in his largely monochromatic art. Instead, the one hint
that he’s exploring aspects of specifically Maasai culture can be seen only in
the human forms that he draws. Those are long, lanky and lean, which in a sense
is stereotypical in itself.
But because
Lemek cares to transcend the stereotypes (he says he shaved his head rather
than wear dreadlocks), his images veer towards the abstract and symbolic. And
in that way, they no longer seem to be exclusively about Maasai.
The In-Between
They’re more about a larger human condition that he seems to find troubling. It is the tendency of modernity to dehumanize individuals to the point of turning them into statistics, mere numbers.
They’re more about a larger human condition that he seems to find troubling. It is the tendency of modernity to dehumanize individuals to the point of turning them into statistics, mere numbers.
It’s not
surprising then that to find one series of Lemek’s work is entitled ‘Wrong
Number’ which is also the name of an exhibition he had several years ago. In
all his series he returns to his concern for identity, although h expresses it
in various ways.
Most
recently, he explores how identities can change according to changing
circumstances and needs. Symbolized with a coat hanger and flowing lines
seeming to symbolize what could be a gown, shuka, coat or simply flowing lines
blackened with charcoal, these reflect Lemek’s current way of interrogating the
concepts of culture and identity.
Untitled
The one
installation at Ogilvy’s, occupying nearly one board room wall, contains
approximately 30 collages conceived out of newspaper clippings and layered with
paintings that graphically illustrate a headline, political trend or
personality who’s making a point in that day’s paper.
These are
the most overtly political pieces at Ogilvy’s since the press clips have been
carefully selected and then human figures drawn which seem to be characters
discussed in that day’s social discourse. Painted with acrylics and expressive
of a time before Lemek began experimenting with the technique called image
transfer, these are works that effectively reveal the artist’s anatomical eye
for human forms and gestures.
The In-Between
Hard to believe that Lemek almost became a chef, not a visual artist. But he studies for two years at Utalii Culinary College before leaving to take a course at the Creative Arts Centre in Nairobi. He’d been drawing from childhood often on his father’s old newspapers since they were the most accessible materials on which to work.
Hard to believe that Lemek almost became a chef, not a visual artist. But he studies for two years at Utalii Culinary College before leaving to take a course at the Creative Arts Centre in Nairobi. He’d been drawing from childhood often on his father’s old newspapers since they were the most accessible materials on which to work.
Since he
made the commitment to the visual arts, Lemek has been in numerous group exhibitions,
including ones at Circle Art, Shifteye and Kuona Trust where he was based for
several years as well as at the Attic Art Space, ArtLab Africa, Kobo Gallery, Manjano
and Kenya Art Fairs.
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