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.