By
Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted for Saturday Nation 19 March 2019)
Four women
artists whose creations are specifically meant to send a message are exhibiting
at Alliance Francaise (AF) and the Trademark Hotel.
Coincidentally,
all four have chosen the month of the International Women’s Day to send their
first mutual message, that women have a diversity of artistic interests and
devise various forms of expression to communicate what they care about.
In several
respects, the artistic interests of Maliza Kiasuwa, Lilo and Gus Chaumont and
Geraldine Robarts overlap. They are all concerned about the environment, both
its beauty and the need for its preservation in light of global forces like
climate change and pollution of multiple sorts. And all four work with both
conventional and unconventional art materials.
Kaleidoscope by Geraldine
Geraldine
Robarts is the one who’s most inclined to create art using ‘conventional’ media
such as oil paints on canvas. Nonetheless, the former Makerere and Kenyatta
University lecturer in fine art is always experimenting and exploring new
subjects, styles and media through her art. At the Trademark for instance, she
has more than half a dozen abstract paintings created with a mix of bees wax
and watercolors on Chinese rice paper. She also paints on linen and wood, adding
elements like gold leaf and crystal chips fixed with glistening resin.
The majority
of her art highlights her theme and the title of her exhibition, ‘Oneness’. For
her the reference is both about our oneness with nature and the universe as well
as oneness with a higher power. Large works like ‘Tolerance’, ‘Beauty,’ and ‘Kaleidoscope’
reveal her love of nature’s bright, explosive colors while her ‘Global
Interconnectedness’ confirms her concern that we’re all in this life together
and need to take care of it.
Geraldine's Oneness
Geraldine’s
message is similar to Maliza Kiasuwa’s in that both artists pay tribute to
Mother Nature and both do so using a range of mixed media. The big difference between
them, apart from Maliza’s role in celebrating her Congolese roots during AF’s
Francophone month, is her exclusive use of organic materials in her art. From
raffia grass, luffa sponge and hessian (gunia) cloth to woolen yarn, porcupine
quills and a bit of cotton printed in African designs, Maliza’s committed to celebrating
the purity of Mother Nature.
Maliza's The Third Wife
Yet her
disdain for the patriarchal world’s disrespect of the woman is implied in the
title of her work. ‘The Fourth Wife’ refers both to men’s legal entitlement to
have up to four wives, without regard for women’s wish. It also refers to her
wonderful luffa, wool and quill installation in which each element has symbolic
value, particularly with respect to women’s role in the home. She says the luffa
sponge is traditionally used by women for keeping their family clean; the wool
symbolizes the woman’s warmth and the porcupine quill represents the role she
plays in defending the home.
Maliza and Harsita Waters of Alliance Francaise
Maliza says
she put ‘The Fourth Wife’ on Instagram once. That was sufficient to elicit an
invitation for her installation to be included in the 2019 Venice Biennale.
Finally, ‘L’Equipee’
is that part of AF’s Francophone exhibition that displays the jua kali furnishings produced by the
French mother-daughter team of Lilo and Gus Chaumont working closely with 19
Kenyan artisans. Lilo and Gus are product designers whose ideas for creating
contemporary tables, chairs, sofas and lamps are effectively translated into
tangible furnishings by local artisans who the women respect for their
resourcefulness and adaptability.
L’Equipee’s
steel wire wildlife sculptures are adaptations of scrap-metal designs that Lilo
and Gus requested be revised using only the skeletal, wire forms, which the
women easily market both in Europe and across Africa.
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