DAZZLING DISPLAYS OF CONTEMPORARY KENYAN ART AT ONE OFF, CIRCLE AND RED HILL GALLERIES

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 28.1.2024)

If anyone is in doubt that Nairobi is at the centre of a thriving visual arts scene, they only need to go see two and possibly three exhibitions that just opened in the city. The three are leading venues for contemporary African art. What’s striking is that all three are filled with a different set of artists, the vast majority of whom are Kenyan although there are a few exceptions. Circle Art’s show also features artists from Ethiopia, Egypt,

Uganda, and one Kenyan living in the Diaspora. Red Hill Gallery also highlights a splendid stream of Sudanese as does One Off Gallery which also includes several ex-pats in their show. Red Hill’s exhibition is the only one in which nothing is for sale since the gallerist-owner and curator, Hellmuth Rossler Musch is also an avid collector since the early 1990s.

“I wanted to share my art with others who may not be familiar with the early period of contemporary Kenyan art,” Hellmuth tells BD Life at the show’s opening. “The exhibition is a kind of retrospective, representing Kenyan artists from the 1980s like Wanyu Brush, Morris Foit, and Annabelle Wanjiku,” he adds. Others include Justus Kyalo and Sudanese painters Salah El Mur and Abushariaa Ahmed who came to Kenya in the 90s.

In contrast, Circle Art’s show, entitled ‘Evocations’ features mainly artists who have shown their work at the gallery in the recent past. That includes artists like Dickens Otieno, Donald Wasswa, Gor Soudan, Shabu Mwangi, Souad Abdelrassoul, Sujay Shah, Syowia Kyambi, Tabitha wa Thuku, and Theresa Musoke. Circle has also exhibited works by Agnes Waruguru, Jonathan Gathaara Solanke Fraser, and Tahir Karmali. It's only the young Ethiopian artist Tiemar Tegene that I hadn’t seen before, but her paintings are evocative and powerful.

There’s a wonderful energy and diversity in the Circle Art Show—from Syowia’s masks and Wasswa’s finely polished sculptures to Gor’s delicate colorful gardens and Agnes’s mixed media textile art. There’s a lot of experimentation and growth going on before our eyes. Plus, it is rare to see so many outstanding women artists in a single show, thanks to curatorial choices of Circle’s gallerist and owner Danda Jaroljmel. The One Off exhibition has a very different feeling and flavor to it as both galleries, the Loft and the Stables, exclusively embrace the ‘family’ of OO artists whom curator-owner of the gallery Carol Lees has a special relationship with.

“Most of the art in this show is new and never seen before,” Carol tells BD Life on the opening day of the show. “I think galleries have a responsibility to show never-before-seen pieces in their exhibitions,” Carol adds. That high bar of curatorial work isn’t always easy to meet, as when Ehoodi Kichapi brought his latest oil paintings to the gallery without realizing they weren’t quite dry. He’d rolled them to bring them, but unrolling them turned out to be messy and damaged the art. Fortunately, Ehoodi had more new works ready to replace his damaged pieces. His newest paintings continue to reflect his haunting experiences of a devil woman. “The only way I can silence her {in his head] is by painting,” the artist tells BD Life.

The two spaces at One Off are effectively balanced with the Stables feeling hot In light of the artworks being shown, especially by the blood-red works of Beatrice Wanjiku which practically overpowers the calming beads of Richard Kimathi, the symbolic drawing of Peterson Kamwathi, and even the last paintings of Timothy Brooke. Meanwhile, the Loft with its pearly white walls feels cool, calming, and serene. What’s made those mood swings between cool and hot possible are the beautiful sky-blue works by two painters, Rashid Diab and Marc Lecchini.

In Rashid’s case, the women, possibly refugees from war are walking on an eternal sea of blue sand while Marc blends his blue with impressionist colors like sunflower yellow and rich grassy green. Together their art stretches half way around that gallery. You don’t notice immediately the connection between the two big blue landscapes and the others across the room. But then, you appreciate Patrick Kariuki’s delicate watercolors exploring the marvels of garden growth. It’s the land being celebrated.

Meanwhile, Elias Mung’ora’s protest paintings are also about land. Coming from a community of freedom fighters against colonial land grabbers, Elias’s complaint against the historical injustice of settler colonialism is obvious. Land can also be seen as the background to James Mbuthia’s images of beautiful multicolored African beauties. The full effect is one of harmony in the Loft.