SUJAY SATIRIZES THE HORROR OF TROPHY HUNTING WITH DARK HUMOR

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (4.21.23)

Inaugurating Circle Art Gallery’s new home base on Riara Road this past Wednesday night with his first solo exhibition is Sujay Shah. Entitled ‘Forgive us for our skins’, one can imagine several interpretations of his poetic words. Surprisingly, they have nothing to do with human skin coloration or with racism. Instead, they relate to wildlife and the brutality done to these creatures before conservation reversed the exotic views of trophy hunters and their casual slaughter of one of the ‘big five’ as a sign of an African safari’s success. Speaking to BD Life just before his exhibition opening, Sujay says he was first struck by the cruelty to Kenya’s wildlife as a child visiting the Nairobi National Museum where he first saw the animal trophies and skins. At the same time, he grew up in a home where there was a giant elephant tusk in the living room as well as furniture pieces that reflected appreciation of colonial culture like his grandmother’s vintage victrola. “Such items were signs of the civility that we were brought up to believe in,” Sujay said.

It is that contrast between the supposedly ‘civilized’ way of living and the inhuman treatment of animals who were being slaughtered for sport that one will see in Sujay’s exhibition. One may need to look carefully at his 20 mixed media paintings to understand some of the symbolism embedded in their imagery. For instance, in one work, there is something hanging from a tree limb. But as the artist kindly explained its significance, one could hear how Sujay has done his research. “Hunters used to hang raw meat on trees to attract the animals they planned to kill,” he says.

After that, they would shoot them, and then the game hunters would take their dead lion or leopard to a taxidermist who would transform the dead creature into a proper trophy to take home to either hang on the wall or have made into an animal skin rug. Thus, the title of his show, ‘forgive us for our skins’. It refers to all the rugs of zebra, lion or leopard skin that he used to see in people’s home growing up.

These same trophy hunters and safari agencies are among those who contributed to the stereotyping of Africa as one big playground for hunting big game, he says. That same stereotyping is one of the factors contributing to dehumanizing of Africans by ex-patriots who came subsequently to seize indigenous people’s lands. But that’s another story altogether. In his exhibition, Sujay’s juxtapositions the cruel and the civilized, the horror and the humor as a means of critiquing colonial culture and a past that still lingers in the present day. The humor is more like satire bordering on surrealism as, for instance, when in a work like ‘In Great Reserves’, he paints (in both oils and acrylics) antelopes, (possibly elands or Thomson’s gazelles) in flight but still wearing the necklaces that the taxidermist placed for the dead animals’ heads to hang on a wall.

And in a piece like ‘Writhing’, we see a room full of animal skin rugs with the face of a skinned lioness who looks alive but in pain. She is juxtaposed with the Victorian vases and tables. There’s also a crocodile skull in the room, reminiscent of the giant dinosaur skeleton that stands majestically in one American natural history museum that Sujay may have visited while getting his BFA at the Savannah College of Art and Design or while working in New York with the professional artist Paul Bloodgood. Either way, he was appalled to find the same skins and trophy heads in Museum dioramas that furthered the stereotyped image of Africa of a land where wildlife (situated within glass cases) looks settled and at peace now that their skins are reconstructed as ‘living’ well on the savannah. The humor and the horror that he speaks to me about may be best expressed in a painting like ‘Field Guides: Passage into the Interior’. Here we can see one lion standing upright about to play the piano in the room while his brother lion has already been skinned and transformed into a carpet complete with his colorful coat stretched out over the back of the piano and its head looking exhausted, having to endure this man-made ordeal.

In all of Sujay’s paintings there are narratives that need to be told, perhaps in a book or online. Either way, Circle Art is delighted to have Sujay inaugurating their new Gallery.

TOO FUNNY SHOWS ARE STILL TOO SILLY FOR WORDS

By Margaretta wa gacheru (written April 29-30, 2023) If I were to write everything that I feel about too funny productions, I would be hurting too many feelings to allow myself to see the publishing of the story go through. First, the group should reconsider their name since they are really Too Silly more than too funny. Next I would suggest that the producer, director, scriptwriter, and founder of the group, Shaggie aka Joseph Nderitu, went back to school and learned a bit more about how to do all the things a theatre company should do and be. First thing would be to decentralize control of the group so that one person is not the company. Shaggie cannot do everything from script writing to directing and producing his play. Not to mention being in charge of his own theatre company. Is this a benevolent dictatorship or what? Maybe not, but it isn’t fair and it isn’t healthy for the company to have one person be responsible for everything. Especially one person who has not had professional training in all that Shaggie seems to claim expertise in. Once a person not only writes but directs his own plays, he cannot easily be corrected or edited. He needs to be working with a team, and he needs to have at least one other pair of eyes reading the text and ensuring it is coherent as well as capable of captivating an audience’s attention. The writer may believe he has produced a winning script, but then he is biased without doubt. He needs someone to tell him if he has rattled on too long on one subject or if his play doesn’t make sense or if there are small tweeks that need to be made to ensure the perfect transitions between scenes. Plus, ending can be tricky and need to be double checked. And comedy is especially difficult since one man’s sense of humor isn’t always in sync with another man’s or woman’s. And in these times when women and minorities are especially sensitive to ways they are being addressed, it is imperative that another person check the script to see if it is squeeky clean of objectionable comments. Acting is also a critical component that needs to be addressed. People do not need to shout to be heard or be argumentative for its own sake. Plus, a script cannot be a success just being silly or slap stick or even funny. There needs to be some meaning and some feeling underlying the story’s action to be of any significance at all. Otherwise, the show is a waste of time, and a bore that is vacuous and lacking in depth. Meaning is a tricky thing, but jokes can be powerful when they point to something greater in significance. They need to be either part of an allegory or metaphor or parable. They need to potentially be symbolic and have some higher implications. Otherwise, jokes for their own sake are useless and worthwhile only to folks who have nothing else to do. And then there is the subject of death that arises as a central feature of ‘The shorter the monkey’ which Too Funny staged only on April 29th at 3pm and 6pm. Every character in the play was glib about the death of Pato (Lewis Otieno). As it turns out, he never died, but his wife and best friend, (the supposed best friend who ‘killed’ him) believed he had died. Yet nobody wept. Pato’s wife Emma wept but she did so mainly because she had learned the guy had been unfaithful to her. She only wept after drinking too much alcohol and becoming a blithering idiot. Otherwise, the supposed dead body became a prop to throw around the stage as the ‘killer; Allan and his house-help Silas both tossed the body of Pato around as if it were a sack of potatoes. One has to hand it to Pato for having the flexibility and patience to play dead so effectively. And he, in his silence, was seriously funny once his body started moving, and no one of the idiots could fathom how the body moved. Obviously, one could have deduced that Pato wasn’t dead. But no, nobody figured that one out until the very end of the play. Allan’s wife Eve arrived late in the story, but she was quick to pick up the insensitivity required to not care that their family friend Pato was dead. The big issue instead was where to dump the body. Eve was best at being cold and calculating about what to do next. She demanded that the guys get moving on this one. But neither she nor anyone among them showed an iota of remorse. All that was sought was the best mode of ‘cover up’. Let’s not get caught killing somebody, was the angle that seemed to come out among this unfortunate crew. But then there were so many diversions, distractions and detours to taking this story forward that it became tedious to watch the repetition of run arounds that constituted most of The Monkey. Anyway, Pato lived and the police investigator that showed up at Allan’s house was a big help in finally bringing the story to an end. But the ending itself was quite anti-climactic. In any case, I still haven’t seriously spilt the beans regarding my true feelings about this latest Too Funny production. I think it is probably because I have been harboring these sentiments ever since I was introduced to their shows. My complaints have been the same, but I will tell them all in private consultations with anyone who wants to know my true views of the group. Otherwise, have a good day, and please suggest that not every so-called comedy has to end as a cliff hanger. There are a variety of ways to say good night. Like now.

CRONY’S FALL BACK PLAN NEEDS A SHARPER PLAN

By margaretta wa gacheru (posted April 26, 2023)

In Fall Back Plan, Crony Players once again come across as a combination of comedy, improvisation, satire, and theatre of the absurd. There is also a message somewhere buried deep inside it all, which finally breaks out openly in the last scene. But when the improvisation gets to be too much, and the banter goes on a bit too long, then I can’t help wishing that a punch line would come sooner than later. Starting off at Central Police where, if anyone has ever been there, they have seen similar antics played out by the cops at the front desk as we saw at Alliance Francaise last weekend but one, when Cyprian Osoro, Humphrey Maina, and Victor Nyaati portraited policemen on the take and masterfully casting off concerns of everyone coming to them to ask for their help. One has to admit, most Kenyan police men are fast-footed, even performative. They know when to be polite and when to bully for a bribe. One suspects they even understand the rule of law under the Constitution. But unfortunately, the public has seen too many instances of police corruption to trust they will serve the public dutifully. It’s that reality of policemen’s penchant for neglecting their jobs, and instead, looking for cagey means of collecting cash that we saw in act one of Fall Back Plan. It was almost painful to watch how well these cops (Osoro, Maina, Nyaata, and even Nick Kwach) played games with people’s lives. It was good satire on Kenya police, seeing them as schemers and thieves, as they put off ordinary people coming for their aid; our cops did everything in their power not to meet the people’s needs. Something as simple as a guy wanting to record a statement in the big book of record became a major drama in which the guy only got one big run around, and no statement.

Even the guy who came in to report an accident was ignored. The fellow came back more than once, but none of the policemen on duty took note. It was only when Maina learned about the incident over the police radio that he took note. His brother was meant to be in that vicinity. Could he have been an that accident? Suddenly, he disappears and the curtain comes down on act one. In act two, we shift to a hospital where we find the same sort of negligence for public service played out as people wait patiently to be served. Yet the service doesn’t come. Instead, the doctor and nurse and even the cleaner (Osoro) chatter on. But then, we learn that this is where they brought Maina’s brother as he indeed was in the car crash. Act three takes us to the church where there’s an MC and several family friends of Maina and his brother who is the man meant to be prayed for and commemorated. More banter starts to flow, mixed with bickering. But that is finally put to a sudden stop when the decease’s daughter (who we met briefly in act one) rises up and demands attention. She (Marion Wambui) is going to tell them all off. All in her view were responsible for her father’s demise. Having been present to see the police men’s conduct (she had been waiting for her dad at Central Police), she knew first hand, that her dad never had a chance. Only Maina paid attention, but that was only when he realized his brother, her dad, might be one of the casualties. If the police had done their job and cleared the traffic jam that surrounded the accident, her dad might be alive today, she noted. Her anger was palpable and her message was plain. Corruption can have far-reaching consequences, including issues of life and death. What is the ‘fall back plan’ when the public services meant to help the people out don’t serve? Is the only recourse to die? Or it is a more political move to demand change. Crony Players raise important issues in Fall Back Plan. The group needs to increase their script, possibly even put it in writing, and not leave the show largely loose and dependent on improvisation which tends to drag on too long and slow down the action of the play.. Forgive me for lecturing, but this has been my issue from the beginning. I look forward to Crony moving forward and giving us more thought-provoking shows like Fall Back Plan.

KIRI'S POPULATED WITH SUPER-BAD COPS

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 4.25.23) Francis Karanja is yet another rising star on the Kenyan theatre scene. The founder-producer of Khwevia Entertainment, he and his hand-picked cast and crew just premiered in ‘Kiri’, a script which Karanja also wrote. It was staged last weekend at Braeburn Theatre Gitanga Road. Karanja caught the theatre ‘bug’ so seriously that he not only wrote Kiri. He tried to make it into a musical, or what he calls a play with song and dance. There’s a lot of that in the production, some of it timely and relevant, some of it incongruous and ill-placed as when Brian (Riki Gathariki) is about to be shot and a couple, dressed in white, start dancing as if they are celebrating this unfortunate moment. Nonetheless, when dancers initiate the show, one sees excellent choreography and agile, uplifting artists who generate a spirit that ironically seems hopeful and promising. Yet Kiri is a play about bad guys and super-bad guys. Some are corrupt to the core. Others are fighting the corruption, nonetheless, they too are bad guys. The police clearly get a bad rap in Kiri. But then, the audience seemed to appreciate that sentiment on opening night as the curtain came down on Khwevi’s first major production since the COVID crackdown curtailed people attending theatre shows, leave alone visiting public spaces at all. One other thing that Karanja had a handle on in Kiri is the set design which is well done. All the way across the stage and from floor to ceiling, was a backdrop that was attractive and definitely urban. The cast made seamless shifts from one scene to the next. But the one thing Karanja neglected was lighting which was too red too much of the time. And in the area of theatricals, Khwevia fell down on audibility. As none of the cast was mic-ed, and the Braeburn stage is vast and deep, it was occasionally difficult to hear cast-members’ words. And the band, though discreet and sensitive to its not overwhelming the performance with too loud a sound, it still couldn’t help contributing to the problem. As a consequence, some important moments in the play had to be presumed rather than clearly understood. Yet the basic storyline was clear from the first moments of the play. Pickpockets and fast-fingered wig removers are seen, illustrating how easy it can be for a quick-moving hustler to rob you of your essentials if you are not ever on the alert. But the pickpockets only hint at what Kiri is about. Instantly, we are transported into a crime scene, a bank heist in the process of happening. The element of surprise works on the crooks’ behalf. They, with their guns in hand, manage to intimidate the customers and bank boss so effectively that they snatch the cash, and escape in haste. We quickly realize there are just two of them, Brian, who’s got a marvelous singing voice, and his girlfriend, Kare (Foi Wambui). They are co-criminals and bank robbers who tell the mystery man, Kiri, when he arrives at their hide-out that they want to continue robbing even bigger banks. They’re thinking it’s easy to do, but Kiri has come to warn them to lay low for a while since the bank robbery is being serious investigated.

It's not clear at this time that Kiri is the master mind of a criminal system that has strict rules of operation which apparently, have served him and his fellow thieves very well. But discretion and discipline are rules in his crime world. Brian is the opposite of that. He continues to plan his next move. Meanwhile, Kiri has a visitor, the first of several crooked cops. It’s Mr Brown and he’s the one who alerts Kiri to beware, as police are determined to find the robbers. He adds that a new set of cops are coming soon. Their takeover of the community comes in act two. The new cops are not necessarily less corrupt than Mr Brown, but they are certainly more ruthless. Their leader, Shaw (Allan Kariuki), is a blood-thirsty guy who’s prepared to bump off anybody challenging the cops or waging a protest. That means Brian is a dead man, which doesn’t need to be the case. But impunity rules among these cops. Ultimately, the war plays out between the bad and the super-bad cop, and the conclusion is a surprise. But in Kiri, nobody is redeemed. Nobody turns from bad to good, which apparently is also the sad reality in Kenya today.

TUCK RAISES THE ISSUE: SO YOU REALLY WANT TO LIVE FOREVER

by Margaretta wa Gacheru posted 4.24.23 Tuck Everlasting is a charming musical fantasy, staged last weekend by Rosslyn Academy. It’s about a family that drinks from a magical spring that gives them immortality or life everlasting. Now one might think the Tuck family are delighted to discover they can never die. But think again. Only the 17-year-old Jesse (David Kabutha) takes full advantage of the deathless lifetime he has ahead of him. And in the last 100 some odd years since his family accidentally drank this inexplicably transformative water, he has travelled the world and seen myriad wonders in the process. But the rest of Jesse’s family are not as enthusiastic about the longevity they face. Whether it’s due to lack of imagination or conviction that they have nothing more to strive for as jesse’s dad seems to believe, it is not really clear. But that all changes once Winnie (Denis Ontiria), a rebellious runaway who is only eleven years old arrives. she meets Jesse and nearly discovers the spring when she is thirsty and needs a drink. Rather than allow her to find out and potentially disclose the Tuck family ‘secret’ to the wider world, she is ‘kidnapped’ by the family. But before that happens, the two youngsters sing one of the best songs in the show. It’s ‘Partners in Crime’, and it is also just one of many memorable songs sung by remarkable voices. But the singing and acting are not the only exceptional features of Tuck Everlasting. The costuming and set design are also outstanding. All the dancers, ensemble singers, and leads are impeccably dressed to fit their parts. And the set designs are most effective. They were designed by the show’s director Alison Harrar, with massive support from Kirsten Krymusa as well as many others that she names in the beautifully produced Program. All the sets were constructed atop wheels so they can be moved efficiently, thus enabling the show’s action to proceed without long blackouts or stalls. They also feel magical, even when in act two, the show addresses more serious issues related to life and death, time and eternity. A big portion of what enhances that magical feeling are the technical bits, the lighting and sound, as well as the live music. In the Director’s Note, Alison refers to the music as one of the main reasons she wanted to stage this musical. She is fortunate to have a strong school orchestra that carries all the show’s ‘folk and Broadway’ musical styles flawlessly. Why this is important is because the whole narrative of the story comes mainly through the songs. One important one is ‘The story of the Man in the Yellow Suit’, referring to the so-called Carnival Man who brings his carnival to the Tuck’s town in act two. It seems he has traced the magical water (which he somehow heard about as rumor or legend) and is now in search of it with the intent of monetizing it for personal gain. Seung Won ‘Isaac’ Jeon is a brilliant villain who belts out his song, backed up by the ensemble and whole dance team. His presence scares the family. But then something strange takes place. Jesse. 17, and Winnie, 11, agree that she waits before drinking the magic water because he wants her to be his age (which apparently never changes). Then they split and apparently the family departs so as not to be nabbed by the Yellow Suit. What follows that’s strange is first, how easily Winnie forgets her promise to Jesse. She’s just eleven, but apparently, she grows up fast enough for Hugo (Peter Matlak), the bumbling Investigator, to fall for her and she for him. After that, her kaleidoscopic growth from Bride to Mother with a new born to a Mom with a teen who also falls in love and gives her grandchildren. This is time travel, surely. It points to one other theme of the show which is time and mortality, and the value of living well and advancing in years, not simply aspiring to living forever. It’s one of the reasons young Millie Tuck isn’t happy with her immortality. And one of the takeaways of this show is the notion of not fearing death. So apart from Tuck Everlasting having a beautiful set, fabulous music (including solo voices that could go professional if they wished), and an interesting narrative, the musical raises deep philosophical questions that are left for you to contemplate.

SYOWIA’S KAPSALE A SHOW NOT TO BE MISSED

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 4/24.2023) One art event that should not be missed in 2023 is Syowia Kyambi’s ‘Kaspale’ at the Nairobi Contemporary Art Institute (NCAI). We have been introduced to Syowia’’s mischievous trickster character in the past, at venues like Circle Art Gallery, National Museum, and Nairobi Art Fairs. But nothing can compare with what the artist reveals about her multifaceted Kaspale than what she has exposed at NCAI. It’s the perfect venue to discover Syowia as well, who I think looks like Kenya’s first contemporary Renaissance artist, both for her breath of vision and depth of imaginative artistry, as well as for her mastery of many genres of fine art.

All those claims can be confirmed if one can reach NCAI where Syowia has been given room to combine an art exhibition filled with both paintings, photography, and sculpture together with an immersive art installation, a whole gallery full of selected video clips of her various performance-art experiences, and also a whole library where she features full documentation of Kapsale’s life journey, including her/his genealogy dating back to long before Syowia started her Kapsale project in 2018. The project itself began while she was researching as an artist in residence at the archives of the MARKK museum in Germany. It has evolved rapidly since then, including her offering a live performance this past weekend when guests were invited to ‘Kapsale’s playground’.

The playground is an outstanding illustration of why Kyambi has created Kaspale. He/she has become a sort of avatar that she can send anywhere in the world anytime. In this instance, she sends ‘them’ to Nyayo House where all the documentation on Kenyan citizens is housed. But it is also the venue where, in the bowels of the basement, citizens were detained and tortured. She pays special attention to the mothers of political prisoners who protested their sons’ incarceration. Professor Wangari Maathai joined the mothers at what is now known as Freedom Corner and was badly beaten in the process. The beatings only stopped after these heroic mothers began to strip as a sign of protest and a powerful taboo that the men had to respect for fear of being cursed forever.

Kapsale’s magical ability to time travel and move in and out of historical moments enables the artist and her avatar to make profound statements and memorable reflections on the past that must not be forgotten for truth’s sake. NCAI is large enough to devote whole rooms to Kyowia’s work which also should send a message to other Kenyan artists. It’s about the need for them to document their art, or else it can easily be lost or simply forgotten. At NCAI, the first room is where we see the artist on video. It is also where we watch how she uses her whole body graphically to serve as her artistic canvas. She doesn’t need a paint brush or primed canvas to express herself. Instead, her body as well as her avatar have the power to silently project their symbolic significance. Her performances can actually take over whole cities as we saw her do in one of her videos set in Germany.

The Institute’s next gallery is massive. Yet it is easily filled with Syowia’s sculptures and photography. Many of her clay works relate to Kapsale who she sometimes performs behind one of her clay masks. Next is the gallery reserved for the immersive experience. It reflects aspects of Kapsale’s origin which Syowia imagined has its roots in the mangrove forests that grow, not only in Kenya but all over the world in tropical climates. The artist’s fantastic ‘research’ into Kapsale’s ancestry, entitled Origin will take up the last room in NCAI which is a library of art-related books but where there’s room for Kapsale’s genealogy. It’s the immersive installation that I found most surprising. Created using transparent fabric which Syowia covered with images of tangled mangrove roots. She then used the fabric to create tunnels and secret rooms filled with colorful creatures that look as if they’d emerged from deep underwater where they lived becoming Kapsale’s ancestors.

The ancestors are graphically depicted in genealogical style after Syowia decided her avatar needed an historical background. Being both male and female, Kapsale apparently required a complete identity for the kind of travels Syowia intends to send her/him on. This past Thursday, Syowia gave an artist talk in which she spoke about her avatar, noting she expects Kapsale to have a long live, traveling into the future as well as into her past.

Maggie Otieno is the most enterprising female artist I know. She is currently working in a studio inside the Bric-a-Brack art centre in Karen that she both designed and built herself. Granted she had a little help from a friend, but working with welded mabati, wood, and glass required more than two hands at times. “I’m in the process of extending what I already built which is just five meters by three meters, making me do a lot of my welding work outside the studio,” Maggie tells BDLife when we visited her recently (4.23.23). Her studio is incredibly well organized despite all the nuts nails, and bolts, junk spanners, metal pipes, ball-bearings that each get neatly placed in separate metal dishes for easy access. She also is well equipped with the tools and machines that every sculptor probably dreams of owning. They include everything from a full set of power tools, welding tools, and grinder drill to metal cutters, chisels, saws, both wooden and metal as well as a wood sander and plainer to polish and smooth wood. “Wood was the first medium that I carved in,” Maggie recalls. Initially, I was a painter [Painting was her major at Creative Arts Centre in the early 90s] up until I moved to Kuona Trust [when it was still at Nairobi National Museum] and attended a sculpture workshop with Elijah Ogira who really encouraged me to try out working in wood for a week or two. At the end of the workshop, my hands were blistered, but I loved what I’d done,” She’s created a smiling child being held by two hands. She was hooked from then on. Then came the welding workshop that she attended in 1998. “I discovered I loved welding,” she says. But to sustain herself until she could afford at least the chisel, axe, mallet, and file that Ogira initially gave her to create that first sculpture, she taught painting and drawing to children, often traveling to people’s homes. Fortunately, she found a benefactor who helped her obtain her power tools, allowing her to work mornings and teach in the afternoons. It wasn’t long thereafter that she got an artist’s residency in US to attend the Vermont Carving and Sculpture Centre for a month. And upon her return, she decided to shift to the GoDown Art Centre. “I wanted to be in a more communal environment with other artists,” But then, Maggie got a chance to work with African Colours, an online Pan-African art exhibition site aimed at generating new markets for African arts. It meant taking a break from her studio work, but having the opportunity to work in arts administration was one more facet of the visual art industry that she looked forward to demystifying and understanding. Becoming General Manager enabled her to travel around the continent and strengthen a regional network of African artists and art institutions. It also enabled her to shift over to regional arts administration, this time with Arterial Network, which now meant working with just seven sets of artists and art networks in East Africa. Based at Kuona Trust, she was gradually able to get back in the groove of doing her sculpture for more hours during the day. But at the same time, she recognized the advantages of starting her own company. Thus, Art Touch was born and Maggie started getting commissions to do work for everyone from Kenya Railways to Garden City Mall to the Trade and Development Bank (TDB). On some, she could get other artists involved in the work, like Kevin Oduor, Jackie Karuti, and David Mwanyiki. But on others, like the one at Garden City, she had to compete and ultimately win, together with Peterson Kamwathi, for her five? Tall. Soft. Metal Listeners/sojourners. That was 2015, and it was around that same time, that Maggie met the late chanelu dodhio who introduced her to a new medium that would revolutionize her whole approach to her sculptures. They were railway sleepers, ‘distressed’ Jacaranda wood that had served for decades on railway lines up until they became obsolete, and metals replaced the wood. These were now long, lonely slats of wood that Mr Dodhio was smart enough to buy, knowing he’d eventually find someone like Maggie who could incorporate them into their art. This she has been doing ever since. “I love integrating the metal and [distressed] wood into my sculptures,” says Maggie who transforms them into towering 12 foot ‘Sojourners’ and ‘Patriarchs’ or 2.5 foot ‘Listeners’.

SATAN A BEGUILING TRICKSTER WITH A HIDDEN AGENDA

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 4.23.2023)

Now let us make Man is a musical play with serious religious overtones that Stewardz Productions brought to Kenya Cultural Centre last weekend (April23). it’s a show that transforms Ukumbi Mdogo into a limbo-like setting in which heaven and hell are literally at war over the souls of ordinary men and women. It’s a perpetual warfare in which Satan (Ali Juma) is an aggressive guy who delights in carrying out his strategic plan to take down all the good people, starting with one recent graduate from medical school names Dr. Jim (Michael Kamau). Satan isn’t simply aggressive. He is also charming and seductive. As a consequence, he’s dangerous to those caught up in limbo like the dead man whose body we see at the outset of the play but whose spirit we meet in person as he’s the one stuck in limbo because he can’t decide which way he wants to go.

So early on, we find this play has a metaphysical component wherein we are not only dealing with human beings made of flesh and blood. We are also dealing with characters that identify as angel-spirits who are watching the actions of mortals on the ground, hoping to save them from Satan’s deadly schemes. The playwright and director of the show, Malvin Ibachi is also the set designer who created the musical’s double-decker set. In it, one can see the metaphysics manifest as angels and Satan upstairs in the clouds while the earthy mortals are being beguiled (like Eve in the Bible) on the set’s ground floor. What could be confusing is the fact that Ipachi allows the upstairs spirits to travel downstairs and back up, taking on human forms in the process. When we first meet Dr. Jim, we see he is a clean-cut man committed to serving the people and apparently incorruptible. Yet he is a prime candidate for Satan to attack in ways in which Jim won’t know what hit him. Satan’s secret weapon is a young woman Satan has already corrupted called Jill (Sandra Daisy). Jill arrives at Dr Jim’s office without an appointment, but being a good Christian, Jim hears her out. But once she literally throws herself at Jim, he has a problem. Like a big cat, she jumps on him several times, until the last jump when he weakens and nearly has sex with her right on his surgical office table. At the last second, he realizes he’s violating medical ethics, and stops himself. His self-restraint doesn’t please Satan any more than Jill. What comes next is a shocker, but it’s part of Satan’s scheme. Jill confesses to Jim that she is pregnant and needs him to help her get an abortion. She needs it, she says, because she is only 17 and too young to be a mother. But she also specifies that she wants Jim, who has some gynecological training, to be the one to do it. When Jim refuses since there’s a law against it, she threatens to sue him for his having had sex with a minor and for sexual assault. She, in partnership with Satan, even manage to mentally manufacture a vision of Jim actually having sex with Jill. But not even this sort of mental suggestion can make Jim violate his code of conduct.

Even when Satan comes visiting Jim at his office and offering him 20,000 to do it for Jill, he won’t be moved. He begins to weaken when human sympathy kicks in. But before he can carry out a change of plan, the ex-boyfriend, Jared (Julius Mwaura) shows up and claims he is prepared to take full responsibility for their child. But it is all a ruse. He pulls out a gun and shoots her, afterwards giving her a few kicks, which throw us all off guard. Unfortunately, Jill never wakes up. She remains in a coma for all nine months of the pregnancy. Ultimately, the baby is born and this is seen as a triumph over Satan’s plan to corrupt Jim. The birth of the child also seems to confirm that abortion is a plan of the Devil. The fact that Jill doesn’t make it is hardly given a mention. But the Right to Life movement focuses solely on the fetus not the mom. One can hardly escape the implication that this play (backed up by one excellent pianist, Craig Harris) has one underlying theme. It is that fighting against abortion is fighting against Satan and standing with the angels, and with God.

SUJAY SATIRIES THE HORROR OF ANIMAL TROPHY HUNTING WITH DARK HUMOR

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (4.21.23) Inaugurating Circle Art Gallery’s new home base on Riara Road this past Wednesday night with his first solo exhibition is Sujay Shah. Entitled ‘Forgive us for our skins’, one can imagine several interpretations of his poetic words. Surprisingly, they have nothing to do with human skin coloration or with racism. Instead, they relate to wildlife and the brutality done to these creatures before conservation reversed the exotic views of trophy hunters and their casual slaughter of one of the ‘big five’ as a sign of an African safari’s success. Speaking to BD Life just before his exhibition opening, Sujay says he was first struck by the cruelty to Kenya’s wildlife as a child visiting the Nairobi National Museum where he first saw the animal trophies and skins. At the same time, he grew up in a home where there was a giant elephant tusk in the living room as well as furniture pieces that reflected appreciation of colonial culture like his grandmother’s vintage victrola. “Such items were signs of the civility that we were brought up to believe in,” Sujay said. It is that contrast between the supposedly ‘civilized’ way of living and the inhuman treatment of animals who were being slaughtered for sport that one will see in Sujay’s exhibition. One may need to look carefully at his 20 mixed media paintings to understand some of the symbolism embedded in their imagery. For instance, in one work, there is something hanging from a tree limb. But as the artist kindly explained its significance, one could hear how Sujay has done his research. “Hunters used to hang raw meat on trees to attract the animals they planned to kill,” he says. After that, they would shoot them, and then the game hunters would take their dead lion or leopard to a taxidermist who would transform the dead creature into a proper trophy to take home to either hang on the wall or have made into an animal skin rug. Thus, the title of his show, ‘forgive us for our skins’. It refers to all the rugs of zebra, lion or leopard skin that he used to see in people’s home growing up. These same trophy hunters and safari agencies are among those who contributed to the stereotyping of Africa as one big playground for hunting big game, he says. That same stereotyping is one of the factors contributing to dehumanizing of Africans by ex-patriots who came subsequently to seize indigenous people’s lands. But that’s another story altogether. In his exhibition, Sujay’s juxtapositions the cruel and the civilized, the horror and the humor as a means of critiquing colonial culture and a past that still lingers in the present day. The humor is more like satire bordering on surrealism as, for instance, when in a work like ‘In Great Reserves’, he paints (in both oils and acrylics) antelopes, (possibly elands or Thomson’s gazelles) in flight but still wearing the necklaces that the taxidermist placed for the dead animals’ heads to hang on a wall. And in a piece like ‘Writhing’, we see a room full of animal skin rugs with the face of a skinned lioness who looks alive but in pain. She is juxtaposed with the Victorian vases and tables. There’s also a crocodile skull in the room, reminiscent of the giant dinosaur skeleton that stands majestically in one American natural history museum that Sujay may have visited while getting his BFA at the Savannah College of Art and Design or while working in New York with the professional artist Paul Bloodgood. Either way, he was appalled to find the same skins and trophy heads in Museum dioramas that furthered the stereotyped image of Africa of a land where wildlife (situated within glass cases) looks settled and at peace now that their skins are reconstructed as ‘living’ well on the savannah. The humor and the horror that he speaks to me about may be best expressed in a painting like ‘Field Guides: Passage into the Interior’. Here we can see one lion standing upright about to play the piano in the room while his brother lion has already been skinned and transformed into a carpet complete with his colorful coat stretched out over the back of the piano and its head looking exhausted, having to endure this man-made ordeal. In all of Sujay’s paintings there are narratives that need to be told, perhaps in a book or online. Either way, Circle Art is delighted to have Sujay inaugurating their new Gallery.

NOMADIC FUTURES INCLUDED EXHIBITIONS, INSTALLATIONS and WEARABLE ART

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 4.17.23)

McMillan Library has been open all this past month for the newly established Nairobi Space Station to display the multi-facets of its members’ research into ‘Nomadic Futures’. An extension of the Lamu Space Station, the Nairobi Station officially closed last Saturday with an immersive experience that included art installations as well as wearable art, all of which were aimed at imagining Nairobi’s future in 2299. Considering how the city will look in the future has led a group of young Kenyans to think deeply about what is to be done about Nairobi, whether it becomes a utopia or a dystopia. “We sent a call out on Instagram inviting artists, designers, and scientists to apply for a three-month project to develop concepts related to restoring Nairobi’s environment,” explains one of the Lamu Space Station founders, Ajax Axe to BDLife. Other founder members are Abdul Rop and Lincoln Mwangi, both from Brush tu Artists Collective.

“We were looking for creative visionaries based in Nairobi,” she adds. “We wanted them to consider the environmental possibilities of the city in 2299.” Could these creative visionaries conceive of a future Nairobi in which the city is reforested, the rivers cleansed of all the filthy pollution, and Nairobi urbanites living their best lives? Or will a dystopia of water and air pollution and deforested wastelands confirm that nobody bothered to heed the calls to change their ways in 2023. As it turned out, the call out received an overwhelming response, largely from millennials. But only eight presented their installations and wearable art on Saturday. Three of the eight installations that have been there all month greet you even before you enter the Library. The most striking are the four banners (made from 6 meters of cardboard boxes, recycled and hung from the top of McMillan’s majestic entryway by the Mathare-based artist Daniel Nuru. Also known as the Archbishop of the Kanaino diocese, Nuru is part of Mathare’s green movement which is where he met Ajax back in 2019.

“Daniel painted four of the most problematic environment issues facing Nairobi [Kanaino in Sheng] right now,” says Ajax who also works closely with Mathare’s Social Justice Centre. The second installation, by Lincoln Mwangi, is a giant pod made from recycled aluminum lids of oil containers (which look like oversized sufurias), filled with mirrors and a seat where one can contemplate ‘Nomadic futures’, starting with one’s self and how they can clean up their own act. And the third is Abdul’s solar panel, which he wears on his backpack. Also in the pack is a power bank enabling him to create his own portable energy system. “It’s clean energy and it allows me to power all my devices,” Abdul explains. Meanwhile, inside the Library, the most stunning display is a cabinet filled with glass jars, each containing polluted water from every rivulet of the Nairobi river. “The most polluted is the one at Riverside Drive,” says Ajax. It’s black with contaminants analyzed by the one environmental scientist in the group, Wilson Chege, who, like the others, wears a remarkable backpack designed especially for life as a nomadic futurist.

“My backpack contains a portable water treatment system,” Chege tells BDLife. “The upper glass chamber is where I treat the river water using cactus juice to remove contaminants. Then there’s a tube that takes the clean water down to the lower chamber,” he adds. This ingenious plan is powered by wind which gets activated by with a refurbished umbrella that Chege sets atop the backpack to catch the wind. It may sound impossible but Chege aims to live in a future utopia. “That can only happen if people are watchful of nature’s resources and address the environmental problems that we now face,” he adds. Then there is Angelia Cauri, a trained architect whose interest in art, technology, and design led her to work in Virtual Reality. But then, she was drawn to the concept of Nomadic Futures. She refurbished an old gas mask, working with artisans from Kariakor. Other members of the team include Wanjera Kinyua, a storyteller dressed to resemble a colorful toxic butterfly which she says rose up to protect the trees from human beings, and Husna Nyathira who created a children’s playground at Wajukuu in Mukuru slum. Finally, there is Stoneface Pombaa (aka Brian Otieno) who’s a walking tree forest, intent on reforesting Mathare where he’s from. Most of the futurists are hopeful, but dubious, as Abdul says, “A utopia is unlikely, but we can work for it nonetheless.”

BRAEBURN SCHOOLS’ COMMITMENT TO THEATRE INDISPUTABLE

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (4.15.23) Braeburn schools have illustrated their fervent commitment to the theatre arts in the past fortnight by staging several fabulous productions on a semi-professional scale. Most recently, we watched the Tim Rice-Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, ‘Joseph and the Amazing technicolor Dreamcoat’, staged at Braeburn Gitanga Road (although the cast, musicians, and crew all came from Braeburn Garden Estate where the stage had flooded during recent rains). Then the weekend before, we saw ‘The Greatest Show Reimagined’, which was an adaptation of another musical, ‘The Greatest Showman’, which was again performed at Braeburn Gitanga by students from that school. And right before that came the adaptation of the George Orwell dystopic novel, ‘1984’ also at Braeburn Gitanga. So one can see, the school is not joking about having a solid commitment to introducing their students to a gold standard of theatrical experience and knowledge. What’s more, the shows expose a diversity in theatre genders and offer lots of teachable moments. For instance, ‘Joseph’ is Biblically based, the story drawn from the book of Genesis, but spiced up with contemporary lyrics by playwright Tim Rice and beautiful music composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber. The whole Old Testament story is then sung by students, but narrated first by the powerful voice of Kendi Wairimu. It’s all backed up by a professional Kenyan band assembled by the show’s musical director (and keyboard) Peter Arendse. Then, ‘The Greatest Show Reimagined’ was biographical, based on the life of the masterful American entertainer, PT Barnum. And finally, ‘1984’ was a grim but ingenious dystopic straight play based on the novel that Orwell wrote back in 1949, but which is still as relevant as it was at that time. All three shows took special care with costuming and set designs, with only 1984 keeping their stage spartan and plain, which was wise as it evoked the Big Brother ideology of sameness being correct and difference implying individuality, nonconformity, and therefore, a threat to the State. In contrast, The Greatest Show Reimagined reflected a colorful circus-typed fantasy world befitting the story about the man who invented the circus and risked his life to be different and expose the value of diversity and difference. As far as costuming went, no show could top the ‘technicolor dreamcoat’ that Joseph’s father, Jacob unwisely gave to his favorite son. It was unwise because Jacob had a dozen other sons and their envy and jealousy of Joseph for being the most favored of all is understandable. But if you leave alone the fact that the designer who conceived of such a beautiful coat deserves highest marks for fashion design, then you must admit the brothers misbehaved badly by selling their bro into slavery. But even the monochromatic attire of the youth in 1984 was pertinent to the Big Brother goal of destroying creativity, imagination, and color. Even Winston Smith (Emma Zhoa) wore black and white despite his rebellious spirit and desire to break out of Big Brother’s omniscient surveillance system. But that show of conformity couldn’t conceal his ambition to break free from the system. He wasn’t killed physically, but the torture that he underwent (like the water-boarding) aimed at killing his spirit. For what could have been more devastating for Winston than the discovery that his lover Julia had betrayed him and secretly been a part of Big Brother’s government. All three productions told fascinating stories, which are determining factors in their staying power and success. But how did the Kenyan adaptations go as far as storytelling went? Personally, of the three, it felt like Joseph’s story translated best before a local audience. There were several reasons for that. First, the story is widely known, not just to Christians and Jews, but also to Muslims and other religious orders. And second, because Rice and Webber understood the advantage of creating a clear and powerful narrator who could guide us through the story, and fill in the gaps. After Joseph, I think 1984 was impactful, especially as the contrast between the love story and the torture scenes were painfully memorable. The mobs shouting as they moved around the upstairs stage were not quite so clear or audible as they were loud and incoherent. But their presence needed to be felt in contrast to the thought police. The Greatest Show Reimagined probably had the most heartfelt and touching story, about two sweet people who kept their love alive with their dreams, and they succeeded in the end.

ACKNOWLEDGING PATRICK KINUTHIA'S LIFE WORK

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (shared April 13, 2023) Patrick knows that I am a big fan of his art, and perhaps that is one reason why he invited me to give an acknowledgement of his work. It is my privilege to proclaim my appreciation of what he does and has been doing for many years. Indeed, from the first time I set my eyes on his African beauties at Banana Hill Art Gallery some years ago, I understood why his women were literally flying off the gallery walls, bought largely by members of the United Nations staff (the UN Nairobi headquarters being down the road a piece) who were looking for visually interesting beauties that were reflective of the many communities in Kenya. I had actually met Patrick some years before while I was doing research for my doctorate on Kenyan contemporary art. He told me stories that I delighted in, especially one story contained in these pages, of Rafiq, the Pakistani artist whom his father had engaged to paint portraits of the stars that featured in the films he was screening in and around Nairobi. I was struck both by his father who sounded so progressive, bringing films to Kenyans in and outside the city so they could keep up with what was going on in the world beyond their rural boundaries. I was also struck by the fact that Patrick didn’t need to go to a fine arts college since he had Rafiq to mentor him as he did for several years. What I have always appreciated about Patrick is his independent spirit, and his freedom from needing to seek donor support or foreign aid as many artists have sought. He has relied on his own resources which have turned out to be formidable. I have met Patrick at many venues, mainly at his exhibitions such as one that he had at Wambui Collymore’s Art Space and one he had at the World Agroforestry Centre which was based at the time at the United Nations recreation centre. That is where I first encountered Patrick’s landscapes and especially his incredible trees which were painted especially for the Centre. From that point on, it has been his landscapes that have been my favorites of all his subjects. For he doesn’t just paint beautifully multi-colored portraits (he painted a particularly lovely one for the wife of the Google boss in Kenya, Jennifer). He paints wildlife and domestic animals as well. But it’s the landscapes that compel him to make his way all around Kenya where he practices that plein-air outdoor painting and photography of uniquely beautiful sites in the countryside. I remember meeting him in Lamu where he had joined in with the wonderful German art lover and connoisseur Herbert Menzer who started hosting Painters Festivals in Lamu, particularly in Shela, a most exquisitely beautiful village on the island. When Herbert started the Painters Festivals, he primarily invited European artists to come paint for several weeks all over the island and around the village. Quickly, Herbert realized that there were amazing Kenyan artists to invite to his festivals as well. Eventually, Patrick and Herbert met up and Patrick discovered the wealth of beautiful sites all around that village. When we met in Shela, Patrick was seated on a big rock as I recall, painting something like a house with the water, the cloudless, turquoise blue sky and the radiant sun being what struck you about the work in progress. His art embraced it all and it was one more occasion when I was able to see the authenticity of this masterful painter. I must relate one last story that I feel reveals a lot about the man’s integrity. And it is one he related to me from his gallery, the one he established in the Roslyn Riviera Mall after One Off Gallery moved out and left the place empty for over a year. Here I found Patrick again surprising me, having his own gallery and also showcasing several other Kenyan artists like Derrick Munene and Kennedy Kinyua. The story he shared was possibly meant to be confidential, but as I’m not disclosing anyone’s name, I will tell how a man walked into the gallery and asked if Patrick could please continue to paint as he does, but write at the bottom of his work ‘Timothy Brooke’. This was soon after Timothy had passed on, and this was an offer promising big bucks to Patrick if he indulged in the dirty game. But he refused entirely to even contemplate such a proposal. There might be some similarity in, for instance, his and Timothy’s wildlife imagery, but the kind of plagiarism being proposed was wicked and a violation of artistic license. Anyway, I continue to be a fan of Patrick’s art and have to say that this catalogue of his current work barely reflects the depth and breathe of all that he has created over the years. But the joy is that he is in his prime and prepared to continue developing his technique and his style of painting. This book contains examples of his major subject matters, but there is much more that we expect of him in the future. Congratulations for all that you do, dear Mr. Kinuthia.

A SINGLE-PARENT DAD GOES UP FOR SALE

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 4.12.2023)

Talk about trending. Heartstrings Entertainment are often on the pulse of what’s trending in urban Nairobi right now. And there is definitely a trend towards single parenting, including parenting by single-parent dads, and not just moms. But single -parent dads is an emerging trend that those men are silently coping with because, as the house-help Stella (Bernice Nthenya) in ‘Single Dad for Sale’ put it in Heartstrings Entertainment in their latest show at Alliance Francaise last weekend, there is a ‘proper two-parent family’ which is acceptable socially, but theirs is only a single-parent home, implying that there is a need for a spouse for bachelor single-dad Timothy. That’s why Stella is on a crusade to find sin Tim (Timothy Ndisii) a proper wife. She believes Tim’s daughter Letisha (Tasha Wanjiru) will lose her chance to marry the son of a ‘big’ name (meaning rich) family like the Kamaki’s if the girl is seen coming from a deviant single-parent home.

Yet Tim stands up for his dignity and challenges Stella, claiming that he is a respectable dad. He appreciates Stella’s opinions, since she has played mom (or nanny) to his three children for the last 24 years. But he doesn’t want to play games. He feels that any family that doesn’t want his daughter because they think Tim and his brood are socially inappropriate can essential ‘go to hell’. He’s proud of his family and all that he’s achieved in educating and looking after their health. Yet Stella forges ahead and invites all three wives from Tim’s past life to come over to help out in this ‘emergency’. She doesn’t elaborate on the details of what that dire circumstance could be. But as they arrive, we learn that all of them left their babies with Tim. They never bothered to go back and look for their child. Nor do we discover exactly why they left without their babies. But apparently, this is the new trend related to single dads and moms prepared to leave their kids behind without a second thought.

Previously, the only stories related to family breakups were that mothers would never leave their children with a stranger or an estranged spouse. Now that tradition doesn’t seem to apply to present-day trends. Stella introduces the three former wives as they arrive, but initially they don’t know one another. It’s only when Tim arrives home that he is stunned to see them. Why are they here? he wants to know. Quickly, Stella explains the situation and all three cozy up to Tim who is now a ‘Big Man’ in his own right. None of them take note when the three big kids show up. The kids are startled to see their father surrounded by three middle-aged women, and are even more surprised when Stella once again takes charge of the scene and informs the kids that each one has a different mother. Previously, they had believed they all came from one mother. Now the genie is out of the bottle, and Stella connects each mom to her child.

Among the three, Arnold (Arnold Schiour), the first born is the son of Judy (Esther Kahuha) while Letisha’s mom is the second wife, Emily (Joy Mathenge), and Kababa (Fischer Maina), being the last born is the son of Zubeida (Zeitun Salat). It’s a glorious moment of reunion with nobody taking note that in all those years, none of the mothers stopped by to say hi to their child. It’s only Stella who mentions it in passing so it’s not a major qualm. But the biggest stunner of all is when Mr. Kamaki arrives on the scene with his son to meet the family of Letisha. That’s when we learn that Kamaki is also a single father, just like Tim. So twice over, we see that single dads are increasingly a trend, and no longer should people believe there is one kind of ‘proper family’. The one last surprise relates to the lad who has been hanging out in Tim’s house for years. He’s been treated like a family friend, but Hesbon (Gadson Gakenga) turns out to be Stella’s secret son. So, she too is a single mom, who admits at the end of the play that she could’ve gone for a job anywhere and not been just a humble house-help. But by staying where she did, she was able to raise her son well, and enable him to grow up in her own ‘proper’ family.

LIQUID’S LATEST IS PERFIDY, ALL ABOUT BETRAYAL

BY Margaretta wa Gacheru (4.9.23)

Perfidy is a playground filled with silly people out to snatch a cut from a 12-million-shilling heist by one corrupt politician that too many folks already know about. It’s a slightly twisted story scripted by Peter Tosh for his Liquid Arts Production company to produce. For the troupe’s past few shows, Tosh had invited other scriptwriters, but he has his own style that his cast seems most comfortable with. A bit too comfortable in some cases, as there’s a bit too much slapstick-styled humor that goes over the top in a story that is itself filled with a bit too many grabby characters who keep coming back for cash. The gals, Atemi (Isabella Moraa) and Tena (Veronica Mwangi) are among the first to come looking for their friend Rehema’s hubby’s swiped cash. They are a bit too persistent, and even pushy aggressive to demand that Rehema (Maria Beja) must know about the money since it is already in the media. It is news everywhere that her spouse, a senior politician called Salim (Majestic Steve) is the one who most probably snatched the cash from his own campaign finance funds.

Why he would do it is nonsensical since those funds have been set aside especially for him. So, there is someone crazy in this scheme, and Salim himself wants to get to the bottom of it, because he is supposedly clean. Salim is meant to be our one well-groomed and honest man of integrity. Yet in this play, there are few if any who are not tainted and painted with the ‘corruption’ brush. Speaking to the playwright just before the show begins, Tosh tells BDLife that Perfidy means betrayal, and he sees betrayal all around Salim, and especially in society at large. The politicians betray the public, the public have also picked up the snatch attitude, represented by Tosh as a wolf (as per the wolf on his play poster). So, everyone in the play seems to be sniffing and roaming around Salim’s household, looking for their cut.

First, comes the Inspector Rashid (Sam Mwangi) of Police. Initially, it seems he has simply come to see Salim. But then you realize he hasn’t come to arrest him; he has come to get his cut. He doesn’t disclose this but Rehema isn’t welcoming, and he leaves. But then, her girlfriends show up. Their sniffing is the worst since their touch, touching of all the technology in Rehema’s house shows off their thirst for materialistic things. They go for the booze as well, and they dance laughingly, recalling for Rehema the days of their youthful delight when they were in college together. But she is pleased when they depart. Then come more low-level cops (Taliana Muna and Muciku Munyui) who are also looking for their share. They are prepared to play dirty to get what they want, but eventually, even they have to go. Finally, come Salim and his fellow politician Nduru (Eric Waweru). This is where it is not clear, because both politicians are apparently involved in the theft. But Salim blames the heist on Nduru. Why then can’t Salim simply return the money and claim there was a misunderstanding? No, he can’t do that. He even tries to hide the money (carried in two large tote bags) from Rehema who’s agitated about the whole thing. In the very end, we discover that of all the people who might’ve grabbed the cash, it was Rehema’s idea in the first place. She apparently made a deal with Nduru to grab the cash so her hubby would have sufficient funds to campaign for re-election. But then, who disclosed Salim as the crook? Not Rehema assumedly, and not Nduru. But then who?

In the end, the cash is still in limbo since Rehema seems okay with holding onto it after all. But the point of the play is made. You can’t even trust your loved ones not to betray you, which is ultimately what Rehema has done. So, beware of family and friends. In Kenya, ‘Perfidy’ looks like a sad but accurate portrayal of what people want and are prepared to look for and find, even if it involves cut-throat politics, fake news and propaganda, and even torture if required. Perhaps we Kenyans are watching too many Netflix films about corruption, or maybe we are just reading between the lines in our own papers and watching too much social media to sadly suspect criminality and corruption as the order of the day. Pole sana.

WEST AFRICAN ARTIST DEBUTS IN KENYA

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (POSTED April 8, 2023)

Dominque Zinkpe was only in Kenya briefly in the past fortnight. But in those few days, he was able to mount his ‘Fantastic Humans’ exhibition of paintings, sketches, and sculptures at Alliance Francaise. He was also able to participate in one of AF’s enlightening panels, and had memorable moments meeting some of Kenya’s leading luminaries in our local visual art world. The Benin-born artist was here at the invitation of the AF Director, Charles Courdent, who had met Zinkpe first in Lagos following a solo exhibition he had there. After that, he met him again in his home town of Cotonou where he was able to get a glimpse of the artist’s broad practice.

Describing him as one of West Africa’s most important artists, Courdent had called Dominique to become the first Francophone artist to launch the AF artist-in-residence project that will become an annual event. “Zinkpe was only here for two weeks, which I feel was too short a time for him to get acquainted with Kenya’s dynamic art world,” the AF director told BDLife. Nonetheless, Zinkpe made a valuable contribution to the panel discussion dedicated to responding to the question, ‘Who/What Determines the Value of Art”. Like Kenyan artist Peterson Kamwathi, Zinkpe said that ultimately, it is the artist who determines the value of his art. Also, what is most important is for the artist to ‘be himself’ (or herself), and that originality is a critical component contributing to the value of an artist’s work.

Mounting his first exhibition in Cotonou in 2000, Zinkpe had previously worked as a tailor designing his own line of men’s and women’s wear. Like many Kenyan artists, he hadn’t funds sufficient to attend an art college. But he did his own private library research and was influenced by painters like Picasso, Braque, and Egon Schiele, as well as African artists, like the Ivorian sculptor, Christian Lattier. “I was a tailor by day, and a student of art by night,” Zinkpe tells BDLife through a face-to-face conversation over WhatsApp after he’d flown back home to Cotonou. The art scene in West Africa was thriving around 2000 when he made his debut, and he too has been doing well ever since. The originality of his art has served him accordingly. His colorful and tall (five feet) wooden totems, reflect a central theme running throughout Zinkpe’s art. It is his deep respect for African ritual, tradition and identity together with his embrace of modernity and the passion to translate the past into the contemporary. “I don’t struggle with them (tradition and modernity) as if they are at odds with one another. I embrace African traditions and care to bring them into contemporary works of art,” he adds.

His totem-like sculptures are made up of literally hundreds of miniature wooden figures, created originally for those cultures that embrace the tradition of twins. Like, for example, the Yoruba of Nigeria, who when one twin dies, a wooden sculpture is taken in to embody the spirit of that deceased child. Zinkpe began by creating his own set of mini-statues but now has a woodshop filled with local carvers who help him meet his orders to create his meticulously crafted sculptures. Each statue is held together initially with glue and then every figurine is nailed together to keep each piece intact. They came to Kenya covered in powerful primary colors, in blue, red, and white which the artists described as representing humans, his ‘fantastique humaines’. But he also refers to the spirit of the human, just as the Yoruba see their figurines embodying the living spirits of their deceased twins.

“I see the human body as more like a wrapping of the spirit,” Zinkpe says, referring now to his theology of Animism which he says reflects the spirit in all things. The name of the worship may be called Voodoo, but the practice is based on seeing the spirit in all things, even in a tree that gets chopped down to create a work of art. The spirit of that tree is still alive, revived as the sculpture,” he adds. Zinkpe’s view about the human body are playfully expressed in the sketches he displayed at Alliance Francaise. Each one is colorfully drawn to reflect the sensual ways of two lovers, dressed only in colors of red, black, blue, and bright yellow. In these, one can see the influence of Schiele, the 20th century Austrian expressionist painter. But ultimately, it’s Zinkpe’s touch that calls the shots on originality.

MUHUNYO’S FIRST SOLO SHOW IN KENYA

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted April 8, 2023 Muhunyo Maina is the new kid on the block, a young so-called emerging artist who is only young, only new, and only emerging in relative terms. In reality, he’s been doing art as a doodler since he was four, been studying art in primary and secondary schools, first in South Africa where his Kenyan parents were living, and then back home in Kenya, in a secondary school that recognized fine art in its curriculum.AT KIOKO’S And he has had the good fortune to study art and art history at Rhodes University (making him a Rhodes scholar) earning him both a BFA and an MA, all in the arts. But he has also come down to the ground and interned with Kuona artists like Dennis Muraguri and John Silver Kimani whom he considers masterful mentors. It is this man Muhunyo who is holding his first solo exhibition at Kioko’s Art Gallery in Lavington. It opened last Friday night.

Quoting Shakespeare in his exhibition title, ‘These Violent Delights’, Muhunyo’s show is mainly made up of black and white woodcut prints which strongly suggest that he has painful, and probably quite personal opinions about alcohol and alcoholism. Speaking to BDLife via social media, Muhunyo recalls one day when he woke up with a throbbing headache (read hangover) and began giving serious thought to the question of why drinkers do this to themselves. The answer to that query is manifest in his woodcut prints which he rightly names ‘violent’ as they don’t pretend to be beautiful or consoling.

Ironically, the Shakespeare line that Muhunyo quotes comes from ‘Romeo and Juliet’ which apparently have little in common with this show apart from their both being about tragic and fateful events. Yet the alcoholic can make the choice not to drink, however difficult such a choice might be. However, just as Romeo was obsessed with his Juliet, so the drinker is often just as obsessed with his booze. It’s that sort of obsession that one sees conveyed in Muhunyo’s art. The exhibition is filled with sculls, (symbols of death) grinning as if they are laughing at all those who will be meeting death very soon. Some of his sculls are situated inside shapely bottles meant to look alluring. Yet there is something so sinister about them that one doesn’t need to see many more of them.

Yet Muhunyo has his own obsession with sculls and hot drinks that invariably come in attractive shapes meant to look expensive and thus, supposedly sought after. I confess, I am a confirmed tea-tootler who can’t be objective when it comes to alcohol. I have too many loved ones who I nearly lost, and a few that were lost due to their obsession with booze. So, I can appreciate the artist’s satiric approach to boozers like his ‘Champions’ and ‘Marinated’ which portrays a guy who looks totally finished, having drunk himself into a deathlike stupor.

I can even appreciate his honest writing his personal opinions into his woodcuts, as when he ironically asks ‘Why remember when you can forget?’ as if he was actually inviting you to do what many drunkards do, hoping to forget some horrible experience or feeling of frustration, guilt, negativity of some sort. But I confess, I much prefer slightly more innocent imagery, like his pikipiki driver being overloaded with two heavy passengers. Or his two wazees entitled ‘Dunda Vets’ even though one can see that their years hanging out together made them veterans of the bars. Still, they might have lived through larger realms of experience than just a bar room where booze is sold or even a garden where they went to drink over the years. There are similarities between what Muhunyo is doing and what Michael Soi and Thom Ogonga have done with their ‘Sex in the City’ series over the years. His wood cut prints have even more affinity with Thom’s, although the similarities stop after noting that they use similar techniques and materials.

Otherwise, there was a panel discussion last week at Alliance Francaise in which the gallerist Danda Jaroljmek noted that one factor in valuing a work of art is years of experience working as an artist. In that regard, the AF director Charles Courdent underscored the point that young artists ought to appreciate that they need not appraise themselves at the same level as their seniors. It’s a controversial topic and one that is actually an ongoing discussion. I look forward to Muhunyo being a part of it.