NJERI RUGENE IN CONVERSATION WITH MERU GOVERNOR KIRAITU

 

Beyond Politics: A Conversation with Kiraitu Murungi

By Njeri Rugene (published July 23, 2021)

Reviewed by Margaretta wa Gacheru

Njeri Rugeni might consider coming out with a series of ‘tell all’ conversations with senior Kenyan politicians like Kiraitu Murungi whose book was just launched last Monday at Serena Hotel ironically entitled ‘Beyond Politics’.

This award-winning veteran political journalist knows most local politicians on a first-name basis after 25 years of covering them either as a Parliamentary reporter and editor, Coast Regional Bureau Chief, or Senior Content Editor at Daily Nation’s central News Desk. And with her knowledge, experience, and incisive style of interviewing, Njeri now has an excellent illustration of why politicians need a book featuring ‘a conversation’ with Njeri. 

Setting her sights on the current Governor of Meru County might seem a surprising place to begin. But the COVID-19 lockdown had already begun when Kiraitu finally agreed to a series of interviews (leading to the book) that Njeri had initially proposed sometime back.

Beyond her decades in journalism, she had already come out with her first book profiling professional women entitled “Women Changing the Way the World Works.” So why not follow that up with ‘a conversation’ with one male politician whose career she had followed since the 1990s when Kiraitu was among the ‘Young Turks’ who spearheaded the Second Liberation which led to dismantling Daniel arap Moi’s single-party state.

The book itself reflects not only Njeri’s encyclopedic knowledge of the man but also Kiraitu as not simply a Harvard-trained human rights lawyer turned politician who rose from being a rural MP to a Cabinet Minister (twice), Senator, and finally the current Meru County Governor.

Their conversation ranges far ‘beyond politics’ to include Kiraitu’s views on everything from Stoic philosophers like Lucius Seneca and Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s thoughts on decolonizing people’s minds to BBI and Kenya politics generally.

But perhaps, the most engaging feature of their conversation is Kiraitu’s telling his side of stories, such as the scandals that momentarily scared his name, including his alleged role in Anglo-Leasing and his inept paraphrasing of Okot p’Bitek’s sexist line from Song of Ocol that nearly got him scalped by women who had once considered him their ally, but no more.

‘Beyond Politics’ reveals as much about Njeri’s straight-forward and well-researched style of interviewing which is poignant, punchy, and unabashed, as it does about Kiraitu who is equally open to responding to every issue she raises.

One of the central queries that Njeri hammers home is why he as a former Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, didn’t fulfill his promise to end corruption with his so-called ‘radical surgery’. There was the issue of his having to stand down from the office for nine months while the accusations against him, made by anti-corruption ‘czar’ John Githongo (who Kiraitu himself had appointed) could be investigated.

Kiraitu was eventually cleared of all the charges and restored to Kibaki’s Cabinet, now as Minister for Energy. But the smell of smoke never quite cleared.

Yet Kiraitu is philosophical about what people say or falsely believe. He could still site all the genuine successes he achieved during his seven years serving as Energy CS, like bringing electricity to one million rural Kenyans and expanding indigenous energy sources like geothermal, coal, and even oil which was discovered in Turkana during his time as Minister.

The book isn’t an apologist account, explaining all the ways Kiraitu was victimized by political enemies. But he admits he hasn’t had an easy time, especially during his days working for President Kibaki and all the times when ethnic politics interfered with the democratic process.

But even as Minister of Justice, he had several successes before Anglo-Leasing and other scandals broke out and blemished his name.

Having promised that ‘radical surgery’ to remove corruption from the courts, he says he at least was able to remove “76 magistrates,12 judges of the High Court and four judges from the Court of Appeal.”

The other bonus of this book is that it gives us a bird’s eye view into Kiraitu’s personal and family life. How he came from a peasant background (with a Mau Mau freedom fighter for a dad) to becoming first in his classes at Alliance and University of Nairobi School of Law. We learn how his Meru ‘lisp’ led to his becoming a bookworm and one of the most eloquent speakers in Parliament. We even learn about his family and wife Priscilla who nearly left him after he decided to join politics and ‘change the system’ from within. But once she understood his intentions, she’s become his staunchest supporter and ally.

 

 

WAMA ART GALLERY OPENS IN NAIROBI

NEW ART GALLERY OPENS IN LAVINGTON

^{By Margaretta wa Gacheru (published )}

^{A new Nairobi art gallery just opened this past weekend in Lavington which has immense potential but has yet to find its feet.}

^{WAMA Art Gallery is really the brain-child of Adam Sargeant, owner of the new social enterprise, the WAMA Boutique Hotel and Restaurant. Situated on a spacious two-acre plot just behind James Gichuru Road, both the restaurant and the Gallery are in a renovated colonial home. Filled with polished wood floors and staircases, the eatery is on the ground floor while the gallery is up one flight.}

^{But even though WAMA is tucked away deep inside Lavington, the turn- out for both openings was excellent. Yet both spaces is still works in progress, first because Adam also intends to provide hospitality training for youth with special needs, and also because the gallery aims to be open to many more up-and-coming artists like Paul Njihia who himself is an emerging artist but is also the current manager of WAMA’s new art space.}

^{Njihia’s opening exhibition was filled with his generation of young visual artists, including himself, Solomon Muchemi, Edwin Kimani, Chebet Paskaline, Nephart Njihia, and Velma. All describe themselves as ‘self-taught’, but admittedly inspired by older, more established artists, like Patrick Mukabi, Kioko Mwitiki, and James Njoroge.}

^{One applauds Njihia for getting the gallery going with this eclectic group of young artists. The only established one among them was Louis Alosa, who provided clever caricatures for guests in the gallery that day.}

^{The one non-painting participant in the show was Tashu Esmail who brought a fabulous array of hand-woven carpets, coming from Azarbhaijan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran.}

^{“It’s my husband whose family has been in the [oriental rug] business for three generations,” says Tashu who tells BDLife stories about almost all the carpets, one by one.}

^{What is most striking about them is how colorful and finely woven they are. Each is an exceptional work of art, coming in various sizes, shapes, and designs. Perhaps the most exquisite one shown to me by Tashu is the antique carpet from Iran, entitled ‘Four Gardens of Iran’. As she unrolls the six- by four-meter masterpiece, she explains the rug is a blend of silk and wool threads. Covered in a grid-full of small squares, each filled with delicate floral designs, she adds her carpets can either cover a floor or be hung like an antique tapestry. I would definitely hang this sublime piece if I had the Sh200,000 that Tashu was selling it for that day.}

^{“We brought down our prices for this day only,” she says, explaining that one of the reasons ‘Four Gardens” is more costly is because it is double-knotted on two of its four sides.}

^{“All double-knotted carpets are more expensive because they are more labor-intensive and durable since the weave is more secure.”}

^{Tashu seems encyclopedic about her rugs which she says are not all carpets. She has also brought runners which are best used in smaller spaces, and kilms which are single-knotted rugs, which are significantly less expensive. One was on sale for (not sh200,000 but) Sh25,000!}

^{To me, the kilms are just as exceptional as the double-knotted carpets. Both are made using organic pigments and dyes. Both are beautifully symmetrical in design.}

^{Asking who brings these carpets into Kenya, Tashu says her husband travels to those regions and has an eye for quality carpets, especially those in need of repair.}

^{“The older the carpet, the more valuable it usually is,” she says, noting that her husband is a specialist in carpet repair. He also knows the art of washing these precious textiles which can be easily damaged if one is not careful. “Better you dust your carpet than wash it,” she advises, having been taught the details of their business by her spouse.}

^{What is equally appealing about the single-knotted kilms is their price-range. For instance, on that Saturday, one Afghan kilm (6 meters by 4 meters) was selling for Sh25,000. “Otherwise, it is priced at Sh35,000,” she says. And while another Afghan kilm (302 meters by 20 meters) was selling for Sh58,000 that day, still its size and colorful geometric design made its normal price seem reasonable.}

^{I could have studied Tashu’s carpets, runners, and kilms all day, but by her rolling them out as she told me each of their stories, we were blocking gallery traffic. So we had to stop, but she said I could come see her either in Gigiri or Karen at her family’s Bukhara Oriental rugs store.}

ART AS A WAY OF MOVING UP IN THE WORLD

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted July 28, 2021)

James Mutugi, 39, had just got out of jail after 13 years of being shuffled between Kamiti Maximum Security Prison to other jails around the land. He’s self-confessed former pickpocket and ex-con who only fell into crime when the going got really rough and his poverty led to his believing he had no other choice but crime.

James had always loved to draw, and even found his way to the Shang Tao Media College for a while, where he did animation and drawing before his funds ran dry. Coming from the Mukuru wa Njenga informal settlement (aka ‘slum’), his early affinity for art had been fueled by Sister Mary, an Irish nun who had inspired many a Mukuru artist, including Shabu Mwangi, Ngugi Waweru, and Joseph Weche among many others.

It was to Sister Mary that Mutugi turned once he got out of prison. Admitting he had been a relatively successful pickpocket for a time, his day of reckoning came after stealing cash and a new Nokia cell phone from a father who had been carrying his sick child to hospital, thus becoming what looked like easy prey to Mutugi.

Mutugi confessed everything to Sister Mary who advised him to go see Adam Masava at his studio in South C. There Masava was coaching aspiring artists who were happy to join his Mukuru Arts Collective just for a chance to see if art could be an answer to their needs not just to pay their bills but also for the joy of artistic self-expression.

Mutugi has only been with Masava for a year, but his years in jail has given him heaps of material to interpret with his art. “I had so many experiences in prison that I want to paint,” he tells DN Lifestyle as he shows me one such painting. “It’s of a prisoner being tortured by a prison guard,” he says of his figurative piece that doesn’t need much explanation to see how a guard is mistreating a prisoner in the middle of a prison yard.

In 2008 Adam Masava opened up his art studio to virtually every young slum dweller and school leaver who wanted to study and practice art, but normally had no formal training before meeting the founder of Mukuru Arts Collective.

“I had started teaching young children in Mukuru after coming back from my own successful art exhibition in the Czech Republic,” Masava recalls. “I come from Mukuru myself, so I wanted to give back to my community, and give young people exposure to art, especially as it is no longer in the schools syllabus,” he adds.

Starting the Mukuru Art Club as an extracurricular activity at the Mariakani Primary School, Masava was successful for several years sharing his skills and getting kids excited about their own potential for doing art. “Eventually, the club got too big and the school’s administration changed, so I had to move out,” says Masava with just a touch of sadness in his throat. “I decided I could invite a few of the most promising youth from the Club to come and continue painting and drawing at my studio in South C,” he adds.

Operating somewhat similarly to another generous genius artist on the other side of town, Patrick Mukabi at the Dust Depo, Masava has inspired many an up-and-coming artist like Mutugi. He’s done so without discriminating and shutting out anyone who comes. “Fortunately, I have an open court just outside my studio and an open-air upper level where we have already held several group exhibitions,” Masava says.

The day I visited the Collective, I met Ann Mumbi, 18, who has been coming to Masava’s studio off and on for the past two years. “I’m coming more consistently now,” she says, recalling that she first met Masava when she was six years old and a student at Mariakani Primary. “There is little doubt that the art he exposed me to when I was young helped to shape my appreciation of art today,” she says. She modestly shows me a colorful portrait of a girl surrounded with beautiful butterflies. “I’ve just started,” she adds, but clearly, she has a future doing art.

When I first visited Masava’s studio a couple of years ago, there were only young men working away with enthusiastic energy. But this time, I met Ann and also Amina Martha, an amateur boxer who met Benson Gicheru, a two-time Olympiad boxer who recommended she go see Masava if she had a serious interest in art. Now she splits her time between the gym and Masava’s studio where she’s quickly becoming as passionate about art as she is toward both boxinh and teaching young girls the art of self-defense as they learn how to box.

 

 

 

MUKURU ART COLLECTIVE OPENS DOORS TO EVERY KENYAN

      SOME MEMBERS OF MUKURU ARTS COLLECTIVE AT ADAM MASAVA'S (BLACK TSHIRT) STUDIO

SLUM ART SCHOOL TRANSFORMING LIVES

By Margaretta wa Gacheru

Soon after Adam Masava came back from his first successful art exhibition in the Czech Republic, he began teaching art to school children from his old neighborhood Mukuru wa Njenga as his way of ‘paying back’ his ‘hood for all it had taught him – both good and bad things—as he grew up.

“I also saw school-age kids getting lost because they didn’t have useful things to do in their spare time. I wanted to engage them in art as a way of learning they could use their imaginations to solve their problems,” Masava says. One of those kids, Ann Mumbi, 18, was just age six when she first met him teaching art at her school. She just came back to studying art with him a few months ago.

                            Ann Mumbi's recent painting, 'Butterflies' at Masava's studio, home of Mukuru Arts Collective

As word got round that he was teaching art for free, the age of his students rose. “I eventually had to move out of the school and invite students to come work in my studio,” says the artist/art teacher who currently has over 40 students, aged from 17 to 39.

On the day BDLife went to visit his studio, now known as Mukuru Art Collective, just over a dozen students were at the double decker studio. “Now that schools have reopened, many have gone back to their schools,” he observes.

But Masava’s same democratic, open-door policy remains, irrespective of the numbers. He doesn’t set limits on membership in the collective since he truly believes that art can serve as a means of uplifting people’s lives, giving them a sense of purpose and a means of self-expression. Now he coaches everyone from an ex-convict, female boxer, and former sign-writer to a former math teacher, eggshell artist, and award-winning teenager. Alex Mungare, 17, just won the Toyota ‘Dream Car’ Competition and earned himself Sh50,000 and Sh500,000 for Mukuru Art Collective.

          Alex Mungare, 17, won the Toyota Dream Car competition which won him Sh550,000

“I’m also the youngest artist here at the studio,” he announces proudly. Having joined Masava’s art club when he was 10, Alex had already visited Patrick Mukabi’s Dust Depo when he met Adam whose studio is just down the road from his family home. “Alex shifted to my studio and has been painting there ever since,” says Masava who since 2008 has also been exhibiting his own art everywhere from Austria, Germany, and Netherlands to Taiwan, Slovakia and USA.

Alex isn’t the only award-winning artist who paints at the Collective. Stephen Ndovu, 30, just won second prize in the student category at the annual Manjano Art competition. Two years before, Isaiah Malunga won the Kenya Arts Diary artist’s residency at Kitengela Glass Trust.

Besides Ann Mumbi, increasing number of girls are joining the Collective. Amina Martha, 25, is an amateur boxer who initially went to the gym to lose weight. She was still at Masinda University, studying journalism at the time.

          Amina Martha, boxer and artist member of Mukuru Arts Collective

“One of the ways we learned to lose weight at the gym was boxing. Once I started it, I found I really enjoyed it,” says this petite bantam-weight amateur who hopes to one day represent Kenya in international tournaments. “After I had only trained two weeks, I entered a competition and lost; but I also won one round,” she says, now determined to keep training and even coaching other young women on boxing and self-defense.

While at that tournament, Amina met Benson Gicharu, the two-time Olympiad boxer who now coaches kids in boxing and is also a member of Mukuru Art Collective. “George is the one who told me about the Collective,” Amina says who currently has been with Masava the last nine months. She’s still boxing but now she’s also learning how to paint.

One of the most remarkable stories I heard at the Collective came from James Mutugi, 39, a convicted felon and former pickpocket who spent 13 years in prison after getting caught stealing a man’s money and new Nokia phone. He’s been with Masava for the past year and now finds painting both therapeutic and a means of earning a living.

James Mutugi, 39, ex-convict has been reformed through art, Member of Mukuru Arts Collective

“I got caught in 2008, but had already been studying animation and graphic design at Shang Tao Media Arts College,” Mutugi says. Poverty is what caught him off-guard, and led to his turning to petty crime to survive. Fortunately, he had already met Sister Mary of Mukuru Art Centre who suggested he meet Masava. His life and his art has only improved since then.             

                             Manjano award-winning artist and member of Mukuru Arts Collective

                                 Rohini Mavji Senghani, a student at Mukuru Arts Collective

OUMA DARES TO SELF-PUBLISH HIS POETRY

                             SELF-PUBLISHED POET LAUNCHES NEW BOOK

By Margaretta wa Gacheru

Ouma Don Collins sounds like a modest man when he described himself, on the last page of his book, ‘Morning Shall Come’, which was launched last weekend at Alliance Francaise.

He simply states,”Ouma Don Collins is an African Writer and Social Entrepreneur from Kenya (Nairobi).”

Yet throughout his new collection of 50 poems, Ouma reveals himself to be a deeply thoughtful man who has much to say about many facets of life. He is also a poet who studied bio-technology, not literature, at Kenyatta University.

“I have been writing poetry for as long as I can remember,” he told Weekender on the day of his launch. “But publishing a book of poetry isn’t easy to do in Kenya, so I chose to self-publish my first book,” he adds.

He also took charge of the book launch, which was well-attended, largely by fellow-writers and spoken-word poets who waited patiently for the ‘show’ to begin.

Ouma was there in time for the lengthy program to start on scheduled at 2pm. But as per ‘Nairobi time’, nothing got going until 3pm. After that, there was a stream of spoken word poets, including three young girls (ages 8, 10, and 13) who stole the show for me. All three were poised, their performances polished. But it was the 10-year-old who tore it up by speaking from the perspective of a child who’d been sexually abused and now endures the injustice of being a child having a child. She complained of being robbed of her innocence and even blamed her mother for not preparing or protecting her from such abuse.

The launch became a platform for that stream of ‘curtain-raisers’ who were followed by a panel. But apart from the moderator, UON lecturer Apido Sidang, the three panelists mainly read several of Ouma’s poems.

All this is to say the apparently modest poet who understated himself in his book was more modest than necessary by allowing other poets to constitute the bulk of his launch. I wanted to hear more about his motivations for not only ‘self-publishing but also selecting the poems that he did

Nearly half the poems in ‘Morning Shall Come’ were in praise of women, including one dedicated to his mom. Whole poems were given over to the poet’s affection for everyone from Nelima, Kossi and Doti to Chella, Mbuki, and his ‘Three Strong Women’ who retained their anonymity. It is often their beauty that the poet admires, but he also has specific reasons for his affections, making him as much a storyteller as a poet.

Don’t get the notion that ‘Morning must Come’ is essentially a collection of love poems, which it is not. And while one of the panelists, the published poet, Munira Hussein, suggested the overriding tone and theme of the book were positive and hopeful, there are several of Ouma’s poems that have political as well as spiritual undertones.

For instance, in ‘Lamentation’, he cryptically alludes to those who have been ‘maimed and preyed’ [upon]. He wrote: “My heart, my land, my soul, they took it all away/with all my freedom and rights.” He doesn’t identify ‘who-done-it’. But he notes he might be shot with impunity anytime. And in contrast to the upbeat spirit that he expresses in many of his poems, including the collection’s title, he actually laments in one poem that it looks like “morning will never come again.”

The poet is also concerned with the problem of power and how it can be misused. In “Power”, he lists all the ways power can be abused when mixed with evil rather than good.

But Ouma tends not to let his poems end on a dark note. In ‘Power’, he ends in the hope that his power will lead to his offspring’s happiness and “abundance for everyone.”

There is also an element of spirituality implied in many of Ouma’s poems. For instance, in ‘Hush the Tussle’, the peacemaker in him counsels against revenge and for peace. He even appeals to a Higher Power when he writes: ‘To the Almighty your soul we pray/ And to us His blessings to reign/ in our hearts you shall forever remain.’

Yet Ouma is no priest. He admits in his Preface that he’s ambitious. He also advises his readers not to downplay their own ambitions. Instead, he says, they should “dare to dream, dare to win and dare to be great. When all is said and done, morning shall come and the sun will shine.”

 

EHOODI AND KIMATHI BACK AT ONE OFF AFTER SOME TIME

                                           LOCKDOWN MADE THEM DO ART

BY Margaretta wa Gacheru (Posted June 1, 2021)

Two gentle giants of the Kenya visual arts world currently have separate exhibitions at OneOff Gallery as from last Saturday, 28 May.

Richard Kimathi and Ehoodi Kichapi couldn’t be more different in their approach to painting. But that is part of the fascination of their shows. With Ehoodi in The Loft, [the original OneOff gallery] and Kimathi in the former Stables, one practically feels like she is entering two different worlds, one terrestrial and thus its title, ‘Rocky Roads’; the other not so much celestial as cerebral and untitled, although Kichapi suggests his could be called ‘Resurrection’ or simply ‘I’m back!’ Either way, he says he’s been down so long, his art has enabled him to be back on the scene and upbeat.

Both shows are filled with works created during the lockdown. Both are reflective of the challenges that Kenyans have faced during these dire times when friends are dying and people struggle with dread and despair. Yet one explores the COVID crisis from a more societal point of view, while the other’s art is highly personal, intimate and intense.

Anyone familiar with their past works knows that it’s Kimathi who sees the world through a wide-angle lens, grounded, and populated with people having a common concern. During the ongoing lockdown, that issue has been, not just Kenyan but global: It’s what to do without work or income, or a means of sustaining a stable family life. Thus, the only thing that is rock solid in his paintings are the roads under these men’s feet and in a few cases, the rocks with which some are loaded down.

Ehoodi’s issue, on the other hand, relates more to the individual, his mental health and to one man’s internal means of coping with the burdens this life has brought him.

Both artists are best known as painters, but in their ‘Rocky Road’ show, both also experiment with sculpture. Kimathi’s are practically a pun in that they all look more like humble rocks than sculptures, more like props to illustrate the physical weight of the burdensome stones that young jobless men carry in Kimathi’s paintings. At the same time, he’s shaped these pock-marked stones into faces that look out at you tragically. It’s as if the artist’s touch has magically animated these inanimate rocks with the spark of imagination and new life.

Ehoodi’s sculptures are only two, both symbolic of the artist’s frame of mind during his darkest days. “The cow is a symbol of complete disintegration,” he says, implying that his own life was veering dangerously towards a similar end before his mental demons were ‘exorcised’.

Explaining that by disintegration, he means that all of a cow’s parts are consumed, including their skin, bones, intestines, muscles, blood and even their horns.

His other sculpture is a donkey wrapped in barbed wire and attached by wire to a barbed wire sphere. “The donkey is a symbol of resilience, but the wire wrapping means resilience under duress,” says Ehoodi. “I felt like that. And like the donkey, I was also weighed down by the world’s burdens,” he adds.

Thankfully, Ehoodi’s paintings reflect his journey from darkness, symbolized by three portraits of the same demonic she-spirit he had to exorcise in order to take back his life. “She held me in limbo until I finally got help to get her out of my system,” he says during the Saturday opening at OneOff.

Admitting the mental challenges he has faced haven’t been understood by family and some friends. “But my painting has enabled me to exorcise my demons out of my mind and onto canvas,” says Ehoodi who admits the demon tried to kill his love of art.

But the proof that he’s passed through a fiery mental furnace and emerged whole is visible in two other portraits of women in his show. “They are my angels,” he says, pointing to the two sweet faces that reflect the artist’s renewed peace of mind.

“You might call this exhibition ‘resurrection’,” says Ehoodi who admits he’s still a bit sceptical that his she-demon is not out of his life for good.

“That’s why I have painted motorcycles. They are for making my escape from her,” he says half-jokingly.

Ehoodi’s art still has that flamboyant flare and use of bold brush strokes. But unlike past shows when his work sometimes seemed derivative of the late African American artist Jean Michel Basquiat, Ehoodi’s fiery furnace has burned off any artifice and leaves him with his own individual style.

BOOKS BY DONOVAN AND MAKILYA REVIEWED

 An American in Africa: 50 Years Exploring African Heritage and Overcoming Racism in America by Alan Donovan

Life Lessons of an Immigrant by John Makilya

Books Reviewed by Margaretta wa Gacheru (appeared 9 July 2021)

 Two men couldn’t be more different, in temperament, background, and even age-wise. And yet there are several important experiences that they share.

Both left their homeland to see the world. One left the United States and ended up not just in Africa, but specifically in Kenya. The other also left the land of his birth, Kenya, and ended up in the USA.

John Makilya and Alan Donovan have had life experiences that are vastly diverse. And yet, it is almost as if they displaced one another, swapping Kenya for US and the US for Kenya. Yet their lives hardly mirror one another.

For one thing, Donovan is years older and started the process of traveling abroad years before Makilya. Yet both grew up with a desire to travel and see the world. Donovan from childhood had aspirations to go and see Africa while Makilya is of that post-colonial Kenya that thought there would be nothing better than to win a green card (which he did) and go live and work in the US (which he also did).

Both had radically contrasting family lives. Makilya’s was largely idyllic in so far as he had grown up, proud of his pioneering father who was among the first to take advantage of Catholics’ missionary way of building their congregations through quality education. Donovan on the other hand had a troubled upbringing with a mother whom he essentially lost when he was nine, and a father who, though well-to-do, was harsh and short-fused. One grew up close to his extended family and today is happily married while the other never married and came from an essentially broken home.

Both did very well in school, studied hard, and made their way in life going to excellent schools. Makilya’s education was grounded in the church while Donovan ended up at UCLA where he obtained advanced degrees in African Art and international journalism. Both were and still are brilliant.

Both excelled yet both pursued diverse career paths. Marilya began in banking but quickly moved on, eventually to consult in economic development, where he worked for everyone from the World Bank to USAID.

Donovan also did his time with the US government. He served as a Relief Officer in the State Department in Nigeria, during the Biafran war. But once having reached the continent of his dreams, he ended up devising means to drive across the Sahara and land finally in Kenya.

And both traveled widely, Marilya all over North America and parts of Europe and Australia. He gives a whole chapter to his travels with his family as a tourist all over America, from the Grand Canyon to Cancun to Las Vegas. Donovan on the other hand spent much of his early life in Colorado where he grew up loving fast cars but after making his way to Africa and launching the African Heritage Pan-African Gallery in the early 1970s, ended up traveling all over the continent collecting indigenous art, artifacts, and locally-made textiles. With those textiles, his elegant and original designer fashions would serve to transform the fashion world’s and globe-trotting tourists’ notion of Africa as a land of stunning beauty, elegance and high fashion.

He, like Makkila, would return to his homeland periodically, but now bringing jewelry, elegant gowns, live music and beautiful Black models on tour around the US and also in Europe.

The biggest contrast between these two accomplished men as that Donovan was looking at his life through the lens of racism which he saw first-hand. Outlining countless injustices encountered by African Americans in the US, Donovan bookends ‘An American in Africa’ with an historical perspective. His initial incentive for writing his autobiography was to highlight the cultural richness of the 50 years he had lived and worked in Africa. But then came the Black Lives Matter movement and George Floyd which were experiences almost comparable to the Black Power movement of the Sixties when the racism was reflected not just in the assassination of great Black leaders like Malcolm X and Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. but also John and Robert Kennedy. Donovan’s empathy for the Black experience of racial injustice is a thread that runs through his life.

Meanwhile, Makilya’s story, despite his global experience, hardly mentions racism. Instead, his grounding in Kenya, among his own Kamba people and African culture is more historical and anthropological than Donovan’s deeply moving appreciation for Africans and especially for African Americans’ desire for justice, equality and the end of racism.

 

EGYPTIAN ARTIST NOT FEMINIST BUT KNOWS THE PAINS OF PATRIARCHY

                      EGYPTIAN ARTIST WITH INSIGHTS ON PATRIARCHY

By Margaretta wa Gacheru

Egypt-born Souad Abdel Rassoul may have her art studio in Cairo. But ever before she met and married the then Nairobi-based artist Salah el Mur, she’d adopted Nairobi as her second artistic home.

Souad has had several exhibitions with Salah in Nairobi since 2014, and several group-shows as well. But her appearance last Wednesday, June 23^rd at Circle Art Gallery marked the opening of her first solo exhibition in Kenya’s capital.

‘Behind the River’ is a grand departure from her previous presentations in Kenya, although there are echoes in several of her works from her days of doing paintings inspired by her fascination for books filled with maps and anatomical parts.

                                                           Souad's Man Tree 

Her style has been described as a blend of both the abstract and figurative. But I would add that she (having studied art history through to a Ph.D) also has a surrealist touch. It is apparent in works like ‘Bull Eyes’, ‘The Hunt’, ‘Masquerade’, and ‘I have mouths that never talk’.

In the video accompanying her show, Souad refutes the claim that she is a feminist artist. Instead, she explains that her paintings derive from her personal experiences of the constraints and restrictions that she has encountered as a woman in society. They are illustrated in a work like ‘Men Tree’ where the woman stands next to a tree whose branches are tipped with the heads of judgmental men.

Souad's Bull Eyes

And while she never makes reference to Frida Kahlo, she like the acclaimed Mexican artist, also paints about her emotions and personal experiences. And like Kahlo, her art is highly symbolic, revealing a soulful yet cryptic language all her own.

In fact, Souad’s art is seriously autobiographical. For instance, more than half of her paintings contain a woman dressed in a white transparent gown, implying that she’s both covered, yet unprotected from the gaze of men’s prying eyes.

Souad is also a storyteller. In a work like ‘First Date’ one can imagine she’s describing her first awkward date with Salah [or someone else]. Following along from that is ‘Waiting’ in which the same two people are seated at a table, socially distanced and separated by a beautiful tree of hope.

Carrying on with that story are paintings filled with internal concerns of the woman who asks, ‘Who is this man?’ Her answer seems to be reflected in the work ‘Confusion’ in which the woman is of two minds, literally represented by two disembodied female  heads.

                                                                  Souad's' Like a Lonely Owl

But then, Souad’s art often reveals the woman’s encounters with harassing men symbolized in bestial forms. They may be an aggressive bull as in ‘Bull Eyes’ or an octopus with probing hands as in ‘The Hunt, or even a crocodile as in ‘Nile Crocodiles’ wherein the woman sits regally on a rock in the river; yet the river is infested with crocs that are circulating around her menacingly.

Souad’s preoccupation with the restrictions that society imposes on women is further seen in a works like ‘Men Tree’ and ‘Like a Lonely Owl’ where the woman stands beside trees having branches with judgmental male-tipped heads. And in her ‘Lonely Owl’, the woman’s only ally would seem to be an owl perched atop one trees. Yet in some cultures, the owl is a symbol of death while in others, it’s a symbol of wisdom. Its significance is ambiguous like the transparent gown which covers but doesn’t protect.

The fact that Souad sees the plight of the woman as patriarchal and systemic rather than simply her problem alone is apparent in a work like ‘Dreamers’. In it there are four women lined up in a row. They’re covered in transparent gowns but still they are covering their private parts while three men’s heads are aligned above them, as if they hold the power over the women standing below.

                 Souad Abdel Rassoul with her 'Nile Crocodiles' at Circle Art Gallery, Nairobi, 7 July,2021

Finally, one thread that runs through many of Souad’s paintings is the river. Having grown up beside the River Nile, she says she sees it both literally and figuratively as a giver of life and a symbol of freedom that she identifies closely with it. That personal identification is apparent in paintings like ‘Crossing the river’ and ‘The River’, both of which reflect her appreciation of woman as the giver of life and fertility.

Ultimately, Souad is a clear-eyed observer of women’s situation within a patriarchal system. Yet she also affirms her life-affirming identification with the river which, for her is alive, ever-changing and ever new.

 

SOUAD'S FIRST SOLO KENYAN SHOW

 EGYPTIAN FEMALE STORYTELLER CREATES SYMBOLIC LANGUAGE ALL HER OWN

                                                               Souad Abdel Rassoul

By Margaretta wa Gacheru

Egyptian artist Dr Souad Abdel Rassoul has been exhibiting her artworks in Nairobi since 2014. Yet her current show entitled ‘Behind the River’ at the Circle Art Gallery through July 23rd is her first solo presentation.

Two of her past exhibitions have been with her husband, the acclaimed Sudanese painter Salah El Mur. But Souad is a powerful painter in her own right. She is also one whose style and artistic statements transcend national bounds.

                                                                     Souad's Man Tree

She is a storyteller whose art, she admits, is highly personal. Yet for many women critics, ‘the personal is political.’ That concept seems applicable to much of Souad’s art. A work like ‘Bull Eyes’ exudes powerful feelings as the woman is being aggressively assaulted by a man-like bull. The image could be autobiographic or allegorical. Either way it speaks about the horror and trauma millions of women must feel when abused physically by men.

In ‘Dreamers’, Souad says she wished to commemorate the men and women who died trying to rescue those who had been trapped by the massive bomb blasts that exploded last year in Beirut, Lebanon. The artist herself is based in Cairo, but her feelings of empathy run deep, and as far and wide as the river Nile that she has a life-long affinity for.

 Whether alluding to a bull, a reptile or fish, Souad’s paintings ‘speak’ in a visual language that is all her own. Highly symbolic, they have been said to reflect a blend of the figurative and abstract. Yet the other ar  Souad with her Nile Crocodiles'

It’s apparent in a powerful piece like ‘Crocodile Nile’ where the woman is seated regally on a rock inside her beloved River Nile. But she is encircled by crocodiles who look strangely man-like and menacing. And looking more carefully, it would seem she has no way out.

                                                     Souad with her Nile Crocodiles

In the video that accompanies the 28 paintings in Souad’s show, she refutes the claim that she is a feminist artist. Yet she admits that much of her art is inspired by her personal experiences, including her emotions, thoughts, and feelings. Her quest for freedom beyond the social constraints, limiting traditions, and peer pressures that she feels in her society are also apparent in her art.

Yet so are the subtle indicators of resistance to those constraints. They are apparent in pieces like ‘Man Tree’ and ‘Like a Lonely Owl’. In both paintings, the woman stands alone, apparently being judged by the men whose heads are bobbing on the tree branches above. What is radical about both works is her daring exposure of the inequitable relationship between the genders.

                                                          Souad's Like a LonelyOwl 

Yet her art is encrypted in intriguing, often enigmatic symbols, as in the painting ‘Like a Single Pomegranate’. Seated at a roundtable are a dozen men deliberating on one pomegranate. “For me, the pomegranate symbolizes the woman,” discloses Souad to DN Style and Art. The men are apparently discussing how to control the destiny of the fruit. “The pomegranate is one of the most delicious and highly sought-after fruits. It’s also a symbol of fertility and abundance,” she adds, suggesting the men’s desire to control the fruit and all its seeds may not be quite so easy.

Perhaps the painting that best reflects the common condition of most women living in a patriarchal world is ‘I have mouths that never talk.” How many women have been taught from childhood to be ‘seen but not heard?’ But here is Souad (who has her Ph.D in art history) calling out the absurdity and waste of keeping women entrapped in silence when they are intelligent, insightful human beings.

“For me, the woman is the bearer of life,” she says. It’s a sentiment best expressed in a piece like ‘Crossing the river’ in which the woman carries a beautiful potted green plant as she walks through water we assume is the Nile. “I grew up living near the Nile. The river is sacred to us,” she adds.  Her soulful connection with the Nile is manifest in another painting simply entitled ‘The River’. In it a woman is enigmatically clad in a transparent gown (as are nearly all the women in her paintings). She looks blissful as she drifts alone in a small boat, holding only a flower possibly symbolizing woman’s fertility and her oneness with the river.

                                                                         Souad's Bull Eyes

Souad knows she is fortunate having the ability to express her deeper feelings and affinities through her art. One affinity she has is for the artist Salah whom she married. Knowing her as a visual storyteller, one can assume her painting ‘First Date’ is about her first outing with him. Her own awkwardness is apparent but it seems to lead to another occasion when the two are ‘Waiting’. In this piece, the two are seated at an appropriate social distance and also separated by a tree that could easily symbolize a positive image of future possibilities and growth. She later asks herself ‘Who is this man?’ but she doesn’t initially have an answer, only ‘Confusion’. But then she finally paints ‘Love I” of him and ‘Love II’ of herself, as if theirs might actually lead to a ‘Happily ever after’.

But in ‘Behind the River’, that possibility is consistently counter-balances bliss with the way women are still living in an inequitable patriarchal system where they must continue to claim their freedom, which she does through her art.

 

SMOKEY AND HIS CREATOR PAUL ONDITI ARE BACK

                               ONDITI AND SMOKEY ARE BACK IN ACTION

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 9 July 2021)

Soon after Paul Onditi came home from Germany where he’d spent a decade living, working and studying at the Offenbach Academy of Art, he held his first Kenyan exhibition at Alliance Francaise.

It was a show-stopper! He displayed not only a new technique of painting, using materials never seen before in Nairobi. His art also featured an enigmatic little man simply named Smokey.

Smokey was clearly an adventurous creation of the artist, possibly even his alter-ego. But the who, why, and where to of the character was a mystery.  The answers gradually emerged as Onditi had more exhibitions and his curious public continued to query this endearing character who seemed to be wandering far and wide.

But then one day, Smokey disappeared and Onditi’s art lost the narrative. His works went abstract. Then came COVID-19, and Onditi went silent. But like many of local artists, he was busy working during the lockdown.

“It hasn’t been easy,” Onditi admits to BDLife soon after the July 1^st opening of his first post-pandemic solo show entitled ‘Déjà vu” at the GraviArt Gallery in Westlands.

Having come down with some bug or other shortly before the corona virus hit the global scene, Onditi also briefly got it. But it didn’t stop him from bringing Smokey back onto the synthetic sheets that had become his ‘canvas’ of choice.

“Bringing Smokey back may feel like ‘déjà vu’ [feeling like you have seen something before] to some people, but I felt it was time,” says Onditi who finally admits that Smokey conveys many of his own thoughts and feelings.

“Smokey hadn’t disappeared during that period between 2017 and 2019. I was simply developing his background stories,” he adds. And when I suggest that some of his abstract works had a slightly cellular look, he says he had been thinking a lot about his bacterial bug. And then came the corona virus.

 

ONDITI AND HIS ALTER-EGO MAKE A COMEBACK

By Margaretta wa Gacheru

Two works in his current show reflect that cellular-styled composition. Painted he says in 2019, “Not Sober I and II” had already begun to bring back Smokey, although he doesn’t look comfortable being surrounded by those cells. Yet they look like the beginning of his ‘Déjà vu” period when Smokey looks slightly awkward and confused with the new world that has evolved during these pandemic and post-pandemic days.

In the exhibition, GravitArt founder and curator Veronica Paradinas Duro included two of Onditi’s early works, one from 2015 entitled ‘Facing the Horizon Three’ and ‘Timeless’ from 2017. The earlier work is mainly black, white, and grey while the 2017 piece is more colorful and clear-cut. Smokey seems to be trekking into the big city, but he also seems to have a premonition that the city may be headed for hard times.

Those hard times have now arrived, it would seem. Works like ‘Digital Mystery’, ‘Chronicles’, and ‘Enveloped’ feature a murky world where Smokey can only see confusion and chaos, says Veronica who is an artist in her own right.

Smokey seems disillusioned in this new world that evolved during the lockdown. A work like ‘Frozen State’ reveals Smokey looking despondent with his head bowed as if he feels nearly defeated. Other paintings that further suggest Smokey feeling alone and unclear as to where in the world he is, are works like ‘Smokey X’, ‘Timeless’ (2021), and ‘Oh No X’. All are primarily painted in black, white, and grey, with just a touch of color.

The one work that I found almost hopeful is ‘Ventricular’. It’s one of the most colorful works in the show, with Smokey situated in a green grassy field where he seems to be walking into a beautiful forest. Finding solace and hope in nature is a positive sign. Yet the ambiguity is still apparent as a white misty belt seems to be barring his way.

The other one that implies a future of possibilities is ’Self Time’ or having time for one’s self,” suggests Veronica. In the painting there seems to be two Smokeys, not one. Onditi says there is actually only one since the image of Smokey in the background is his reflection “from the other side’. The implication being that Smokey is projecting himself into a future after getting through these difficult times.

In the meantime, Smokey and Onditi have been welcomed back to life among the living. Both continue to venture forth despite post-pandemic uncertainties. There’s hope that they too shall pass, and Smokey will keep on trekking.