SHOWCASING ON PALESTINE, WORMHOLE, AND LOVE OF TREES AT ONE OFF

Three exhibitions in three separate gallery spaces opened last weekend at One Off. Each very different, but all having something to say about our life and times. They are James Karanja, James Mweu, and Xavier Verhoest.

It’s reminiscent of what Carol Lees used to do as the co-owner (with Mary Collis) and curator of RaMoMa (Rahmtulah Museum of Modern African Art) when it was still standing on Second Avenue Parklands. For a time in the early 2000s she would curate seven separate gallery spaces a once. Sadly Ramoma shut down in 2010, but Carol remained well as she went back to her home base at  One Off which she had opened in 1994 and never closed.  

Inside the Loft, one will find James Karanja’s fascinating collection of prints called collagraphs. He entitles his exhibition ‘Wormhole’ referring to a theoretical concept all about bridging long distances separating spaces and times. He wraps so many concepts together in just less than 30 prints, everything from the role of technology in bridging gaps between generations to appraising the way communication tools have transformed our everyday lives. “People used to write letters and share their deeper thoughts, but now, we do everything on our phone,” Karanja tells BDLife. He shared old advertisements to shop in elegant department stores, now rendered obsolete since we do all our shopping online. He ends with a series of fancy screen savers for our cell phones, our new best friends.

James’ Mweu and Karanja have several things in common, apart from their first names. They both favor printmaking and they’ve both been working for their respective exhibitions at the Mandy Bonnell Print Studio which is also based at One Off. Bonnell, though based in UK, is still considered a part of the One Off family. She was running printmaking workshops at One Off since the 1990’s and donated a printer to the gallery in 2022. ‘But it wasn’t installed until 2023,” Carol tells BDLife, noting that initially Mandy’s print workshops took place at Yony Waite’s Wildebeest Workshop in Lamu.  (The memorial service for Yony will take place March 5 from 4-8 at Circle Art Gallery.)  

Mweu’s exhibition occupies one portion of the Stables and utilizes it well with woodcut prints and the boards the artist carved and etched in to create his elegant line prints of trees. Why trees? We ask. ‘Because I’m a hiker who hikes all over the country and often through forests still covered in trees,” he says. Having made a limited edition of his prints, and just six woodcut boards, his focus is strictly on one of Kenya’s many endangered species, our forests and our trees.

Xavier Verhoest has taken a brave step making a powerful statement in his paintings and photographs that he prepared to display in “Our Memories Can’t Wait (For Palestine)” .

“I am so proud of Carol for bringing Xavier’s exhibition to One Off,” noted one Dutch woman who felt compelled to speak out about the tragedy ongoing in the Middle East, particularly in Palestine. “This exhibition is the first one to use the visual arts to protest what’s happening to the Palestinian people,” she adds. But I must correct her since the first one was staged a month ago at the Cheche Gallery at the Kenya Cultural Centre by a group sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinian people whose stories are rarely told in their most raw reality. That show featured mainly political posters and cartoons and photographs from all over the world, all bearing the same message, that a ceasefire needs to happen now.

Xavier confesses in touching remarks made on a framed introduction board, that he first began to paint seriously while working for Doctors without Borders (MSF) in Jerusalem in 1999. He was deeply moved by that experience living amidst the trials, traumas, and tragedies already inflicted on the Palestinians who were locked into small strips of land, under Israel’s dominant neo-colonial control. The situation was so dark emotionally that he had to do something to create his own concept of beauty to contrast the blight that lay all around him.

Since his departure from Gaza, Xavier has been haunted by his memories of that experience. So much so that he had to create abstract paintings meant to capture colors, moods, and memories that might transcend the painful reality which continues in Palestine.

Xavier has had many exhibitions both in and outside Kenya. But for me, this one is his finest and most soulful.  

 

IN SICKNESS AND HEALTH SWINGS BETWEEN JOY AND GRIEF

BY MARGARETTA WA GACHERU (posted 2.27.2024) Sweet and Sour is the name of the bar where much of Son of Man’s latest production, ‘In Sickness and Health' took place last weekend but one at Alliance Francaise. It also gives a title to the major mood swings that dominate much of the play. The cause of those mercurial gyrations between the sweet and sour, the bitter and the bliss is the silent killer, cancer. Cancer isn’t just the primary theme of the latest play that Mavin Kibicho wrote, directed, and produced. It is also the major preoccupation of two families who initially have nothing in common other than the bar that members of both families frequent regularly. It is also the cause of so much grief and emotional turmoil that they both are feeling after they each lose a loving parent to the deadly disease. Fortunately, one of the sweetest things in the show is the voice, poise, and seductive performance of songstress Sharlene (Ivy Gidget). She is one of the three sisters who are mourning the passing of their beloved mum. Yet in her case, she seems least affected by her mother’s demise given she never took off a single day from her singing gig to grieve with her sisters. Nonetheless, however impervious to grief Sharlene seems to be over her family’s loss, we can’t miss the depth of emotional turmoil felt by the second sister, Nancy (Naomi Wairimu) when Sharlene invites her to come up and sing along with her. Nancy's silent refusal to sing at all seems embittered for reasons we don’t yet know. But we later learn that her mum had adored Nancy’s singing apparently more than her older sister’s, and Sharlene knew it. So Nancy’s refusal to sing was a sort of protest against the psychic ‘powers that be’ that stole her mother’s life from her. But despite her grief, Nancy agrees to doing an interview with a local journalist, Elphas (Peter Saisi) who is also about to lose his father to cancer. Elphas publishes her family's story as part of a series he is writing on cancer. Unfortunately, he had failed to request permission to use their names in his story. As a consequence, Nancy storms into Sweet and Sour, and picks a fight with him. She slaps him hard in the heat of her rage. Shortly thereafter, he gets the sack from his newspaper which in turn, give Nancy the media equivalent of his job. The play itself is filled with these sorts of tragic twists and turns. Apparently Kibicho chose to write it this way specifically to rouse awareness of some of the central issues associated with this disease. He handled this challenging topic with sensitivity and style. For instance, his choice to have sweet live music provided by a cool jazz trio, (guitarist, percussionist, and singer) who blended in well with the story. What's more, there's symmetry in the ways the two families cope with the crushing loss of their parent. Yet, we never find out why Elphas stayed away from his rural home for so many years. We gather there had been problems between the father and son but it was left like a loose end. We do learn that he’d been deceived by his younger brother who sent the message he should come home urgently. But Peter’s brother had been well intentioned since he knew his mum would take her husband’s death badly and the family would need to come together. Elphas still wasn’t interested in going home until there was another turn of events. Nancy arrived at the bar after she got Peter’s job and showed remorse for her family pressuring the paper to get him sacked. He's a borderline suicidal case by then, but her tender attention to his mental wounds has a surprising effect on him. If she would accompany him home, he would go. So, they agree and we get a chance to meet his marvelous mum before she gets the news that Dad had a relapse. This could only mean one thing. Now comes the excessive weeping and whaling, followed by a depressing funeral scene, and another depressing scene at the grave. Fortunately, the play ended on a happier note, with the wedding of Nancy and Elphas, and the final message that love can heal every psychic wound in the book. We also get it that it’s smart to get tested as it could save you from grief in future times.

PUPPET-MUSICAL SENDS POWERFUL PLASTICS MESSAGE IN TIME FOR UNEP SUMMIT

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted feb 27, 24)

Leo’s search for a new home’ is the first theatrical production that was not only open to the public as we saw last Monday afternoon when scores of school children came streaming into Peponi House in Westlands to watch this heartwarming, witty, and fabulously original play. It was also on the official program for the UNEP Climate Conference which opened the same day as the play, which is part puppet show, part musical, complete with lively music and marvelous dancing fit for children to come up and join in. “Several members from the EU (European Union) delegation to Kenya came to watch the show today,” Leo’s creator and director, Kasia Meszaros tells BDLife shortly after the 4pm performance. She adds that the EU delegation to Kenya (EUDK) is helping her Karagosi Theatre company produce the show, largely because of ‘Leo” making such a convincing statement about plastics polluting our oceans. It’s also a production that is child-friendly, interactive, and focused on capturing children’s (and adults’) attention with a clearcut message that plastic pollution does terrible damage threatening the very existence of whole species. But we can all play our part to end it. In fact, there is a point in the show when one puppeteer invites the children to go out into the auditorium and collect plastics for recycling. This they do, and clearly love becoming part of the performance. One scene that illustrates just how life-threatening plastics are to the oceans, takes place in the operating room of Dr Blade (Kennedy Aswani). The show itself is so fantasmic and fresh that one’s not surprised when a shipwreck is unearthed after a huge storm and Leo meets creatures who have made the ship their home. But then, the scene shifts and the ship opens up into Dr Blade’s clinic. Leo and his new friends, the eels, are looking for Mary, their eel sister. They find her getting her stomach cleared as Dr Blade who pulls out reams of plastic that she’d swallowed. Turns out, Mary is a survivor, but many more are strangled by plastics.

But before any of this takes place, Leo has to be born. The first scene of the show has a tortoise egg cracking open, and a nameless tortoise soon-to-be-named Leo emerges and realizes he must find a new home since his first one, the egg, is gone. Shortly thereafter, Leo’s puppeteer (Tirath Padam) appears. They’ll stay together from then on, but we are meant to believe the puppet is leading the person holding his stick, not vice versa. It’s tricky since this is puppeteering unlike the conventional puppet show. The innovations that Kasia interjects are more nuanced, daring, and liberating. Tirath has understood this quality of freedom which he’s strengthened since last June when Leo first came on the theatre scene working with Aperture Africa. Since then, Kasia has made major revisions in her script, aimed at sending out a stronger, clearer, more engaging, and interactive message. At the same time, she has streamlined her set, creating underwater garbage mounds made out actual trash that she’s collected from Nairobi’s garbage dumps. So her underwater mounds have everything in them from wheel plates and an old jiko stove to a rusty old bicycle.

The turbulent oceanic waters that nearly drown Leo are simulated with long blue ribbons and strobe lights. The waters sweep him up onto land and that’s when he had his first encounter with humans. Previously, Leo believed with his other fishy-friends that humans are their enemy because they are the worst plastic polluters. It is all their junk, especially their plastics which are bringing the biggest problems to the planet, including the fish in the sea. But Leo encounters other threats on his journey, like the Plastic Monster (Victor Otieno) and the sharks who are looking forward to eating Leo for lunch. It is not to be, but one shark (Dadson Gakenga) comes very close to munching Leo’s head off. The shark actually had a good grip on Leo’s head. But he paused, and Leo’s new fish friends had time to snatch him from the jaws of the shark who ironically has no teeth. They save his life and turn into Leo’s best buddies. They include everyone from Crab and Sunny Ray (Chandni Vaya), eels (Dadson Gakenga, Michelle Wanjiku, Neema Bagamuhunda), and Whale (Kennedy Aswani) to the toothless shark (Dadson). These are the creatures who give Leo a sense of hope, purpose and identity, and make him conclude he has finally found his new home.

SITAWA’S STORIES OF HEART-BREAK FILLED WITH WIT, MUSIC, INSIGHT

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted February 26, 2024) Sitawa Namwalie may be best known for being a poet and performing artist. But there are many more theatrical facets of this dynamic actor, playwright, director and storyteller who can use multiple media to make her stories palatable and entertaining as well as enlightening and inspiring. Sitawa is currently working on her first musical production. Fortunately, she found time to return to her strong hand, that of poetry and performance, blended with music by solo musician, singer-guitarist Otivo Stingotho. ‘Stories from the Capital of Broken Hearts’ was staged last weekend at Braeburn School Gitanga where Sitawa’s cast served up as a “intergenerational conversation between the young and the old”. This she told BDLife and other audience members before the show began last Sunday afternoon. Produced and directed by Sitawa herself. She also assembled the quartet of actor-storytellers, including Mufasa ‘the poet’ Kibet, Wanjiku Gicheru, Mudamba Mudamba, and Sitawa who included guitarist-singer Otivo Stingotho to make cool music during interludes between the 12 poetic story-conversations. Sitawa’s ‘conversations’ were filled with a wide range of emotions, from humor and irony, passion and pride to resentment and jealousy, sorrow and remorse. Memory also played an important role as the actors interrogated a diverse set of broken hearts and wondered what could have caused all this grief? It was then we discovered how deep one had to delve to find out the actual cause (multiple causes) that led to hearts being broken. The quartet arrived on stage walking as if they could be one of the broken-hearted or one of the heart-breakers or both. Ultimately, we would see that almost everyone had experienced a bruised or broken heart and that no one cause could be seen as the sole source that caused the breakage. But first, there was wonderful delivery of Sitawa’s 12 inspired poems by an inspired cast. Set on a bare stage with actors mostly standing, or occasionally sitting on stools, the costuming was casual apart from Wanjiku Gicheru’s elegant red evening dress and the two thick black wigs worn by Mudamba and Satawa, while Mufasa donned his classic black Beret. Then began the conversations, with the first two, an amusing interchange between the older woman (Sitawa) asking ‘Was I ever’ as beautiful and desirable as this young woman here, referring to Wanjiku who clearly enjoyed being admired like the young slay-queen she probably was. Then came the slay-queen herself, asking, ‘Will I Ever’ be as dilapidated as that old woman over there? She’s a nasty, insulting child who got a solid verbal slap from the mama for her abuse. Sitawa even warned the slay-queen she wouldn’t be beautiful forever, that age would also catch up with her, so wise up or else she’ll be caught off guard.. From then on, we heard about a whole range of heart-breaking experiences. For instance, Mufasa delivered a tragic monologue about ‘When My father got sick’ which broke the son’s heart. But what caused the heart-break wasn’t a single event. It was evolutionary, starting with his mother leaving his dad which broke his father’s heart. After that, his dad lost his job and took to drinking, which the son found most disheartening. Then the dad got sick, and we never heard the end of the story. But it was clear the son’s heart was also broken by the family rupture, the tragic loss of both his parents, all three of whom had been damaged each in their own way. We also heard from Mudamba who lightened up the scene as he mused on the power of memory and ‘The First Hello’ that he struggled, as a youth to get from an early version of Sitawa. This conversation laid the groundwork for a cat and mouse game between the soon-to-be lovers, Mudamba and Sitawa. But their mutual ‘First Love’ status was badly shaken by the time they gave their final monologue cum conversation. Before that, we heard Mufasa mocking the whole concept of first love, given he was a specialist in breaking young women’s hearts (including Wanjiku’s), and allowing them to ignorantly believe that he was the faithful type, meanwhile enjoying his status as Casanova (the male equivalent of slay-queen). In the end, the middle-aged male accused his wife of letting him down by having only four children. He broke her heart with his vanity and selfish pride. But finally, it would seem that everyone was guilty of breaking somebody’s heart somehow somewhere. Forgiveness and love looked like the only means of emerging from the breakage and liberating hearts.

IN SICKNESS AND HEALTH SHOW THE MOOD SWINGS OF WEDLOCK AND WOEFUP DEATH

BY MARGARETTA WA GACHERU (POTED 2.18.25) Sweet and Sour is the name of the bar where much of the Son of Man’s latest production, ‘In Sickness and Health' took place last weekend at Alliance Francaise. It also gives a title to the major mood swings that dominate much of the play. The cause of those mercurial gyrations between the sweet and sour, the bitter and the bliss is the silent killer, cancer. Cancer isn’t just the primary theme of the latest play that Mavin Kibicho wrote, directed, and produced. It is also the major preoccupation of two families who initially have nothing in common other than the bar that members of both families frequent occasionally. It is also the cause of so much grief and emotional turmoil that both families are feeling after each one of them loses a loving parent to the deadly disease. Fortunately, one of the sweetest things in the show is the voice, poise, and seductive performative style of songstress Sharlene (Ivy Gidget). She is one of the three sisters who are mourning the passing of their beloved mother. Yet in her case, she seems least affected by her mom’s demise given that she never took an off from her singing gig, (not even for a day) to grieve with her two sisters. Nonetheless, however impervious to grief that Sharlene seems to be over her family’s loss of their mum, we can’t miss the depth of emotional turmoil felt by the second sister, Nancy (Naomi Wairimu) when Sharlene invites her to come up and sing along that her. Nancy's silent refusal to sing at all seems embittered for reasons we don’t yet know. But it turns out, we later learn that her mum had adored her singing and Sharlene knew it. So Nancy’s refusal to sing was a sort of protest against the psychic ‘powers that be’ which stole her mother’s life. But despite her grief, Nancy agrees to doing an interview with a local journalist, Elphas (Peter Saisi) who is just about to lose his father to cancer. Elphas publishes her family's story as part of a series he is leading on cancer. Unfortunately, he had failed to request permission to use their names in his story. As a consequence, Nancy storms into to the bar, and picks a fight with the journalist, slapping him hard in the heat of her hostility. Then, right after that, he gets the sack from his newspaper which in turn goes on to give Nancy the media equivalent to his job. The play itself is filled with these sorts of twists and turns. It's obvious it was written specifically to rouse awareness to some of the central issues associated with cancer. Mavin Kibicho handled this challenging topic with finesse and flare. For instance, his choice to have sweet live music provided by a cool jazz trio, (just a guitarist, percussionist, and singer) blend in well with the story. What's more, there's symmetry in the ways the two families cope with the crushing loss of their loved one. Yet, we don’t really know why Elphas had stayed away from his rural home for so many years or how he'd been called to come now that their father is dying. He is told by his brother that his mother made the request; but it turns out to be this brother who saw the need for the family to pull together, especially as their mother will take her husband’s passing very badly. Elphas still wasn’t interested in going home until there's another startling turn of events. Nancy arrives at the bar after she got his job and showed remorse for her family pressuring the paper to get him sacked. He's a borderline suicidal case by then, but her tender attention to his mental wounds has a surprising effect on him. If she will accompany him home, he will go. So, they agree and we get a chance to meet his marvelous mama before she gets the news that he's had a relapse and this can only mean one thing. Now comes the excessive weeping and whaling, followed by a depressing funeral scene, after which comes another depressing gravesite scene. Fortunately, the play ended on a happier note, with the wedding of Nancy and Elphas, and the final message that love can heal every psychological wound in the book. Of course, we also get the message that it’s smart to go and get tested. It’s bound to save you from grief in the future. Well done, Son of Man Productions.

MINUTES 1. OF ART FAIR COMMITTEE MEET 12 FEB 2024

MINUTES OF VIRTUAL ART FAIR WORKING GROUP MEETING February 12, 2024 8pm on ‘Meet’ appPresent: Maggie, Stanley, Ato, Kevo, Shine, Margaretta Agenda. 1. To appoint a group chair-person. This will be decided as last agenda item 2. Name of committee. Art Fair Working Group or AFWG 2024. 3. What kind of Art Fair do we want? What kind of Art Fair do artists who came last Saturday, February 11 @ Kuona to the first Art Fair meeting say they wanted? Maggie found artists want Art Fair to be ‘memorable, professional, impact-full’ and ongoing 4. What are the vision and mission of the Art Fair? Stanley observed, a Vision is like a dream for what we want our Art Fair to become; a mission relates to the means for getting there. e.g. one vision: to see our Art Fair eventually become a Biennale or to be Best Art Fair in Africa. The mission: to be the best Art Fair in Africa by doing research on art fairs to understand how to achieve our vision; to speak to our advisors, Wambui Collymore, Thom Ogonga, and Eric Menya to get their perspectives. Members were advised to use this week to think about what vision and sense of mission they would propose next week. 5. Our Mandate: Artists entrusted us to steer the art fair to fruition and success. They trust us to keep them posted and also collect ideas that they might want to share. Our mandate is to coordinate all aspects of the art fair, to motivate the artists to start preparing to be in the fair, to inspire them to think about how they can make the art fair a success by creating outstanding works of art. 6. Membership in the Working Group: The group is meant to have seven, not six as we are now. Eric Menya or the AVAC art lawyer might be choices. They could also become advisors (either/or). Advisors now are Wambui, Thom, and either Menya Eric or AVAC lawyer. 7. Work Plan. Eventually, we will need a Secretariat, but that will require funds and a better sense of the requirements for (re-) establishing the Nairobi Art Fair. 7th member: Those proposed to join the group were Eric Menya, Emmaus Kimani, another artist (possibly a female) or a non-artist who could represent a future secretariat, someone who would not have any conflicts of interest, but had practical skills, experience, and wisdom. 8. Strategic Tasks and Duties assigned: 1. Ato and Cheche assigned to look at possible venues for the Art Fair 2. Margaretta to serve as secretary to group, 3. Kevin and Shine to come up with a list of budget items required for Art Fair 4. Maggie to look at viable options for a Secretariat that could take over management of the Art Fair; it would need good managerial skills, registration of the Fair, keeping track of budget and updated audits, and all-round capacity to handle these tasks. 5. Cheche will research for us to decide on our Art Fair’s name. He will find out if Nairobi Art Fair is available to us. Otherwise, what other possible names do we like? 6. Possible Venues for the Art Fair: a. KICC because they had previously offered huge space at low cost and is centrally located. b. Sarit Centre, c. Rosslyn Rivera Mall, d. Village Market, e. The Hub, Karen, f. Nairobi National Museum, g. Waterfront, Karen, h. Two Rivers, i. The Mall Basement, Westlands, j. Uchumi Hyper, Ngong Road (a GoDown which is empty) k. Issues to consider when appraising Spaces: Accessibility, Security, Parking, Size of space, Cost per 3 day l. Researching legalities for registering Art Fair. We will need a CONSTITUTION 6. Choice of Chairperson: Maggie by unanimous vote, assisted by Kevo and Cheche. 7. Next meeting of AFWG: Always Mondays 8pm, virtually on ‘Meet’ app for now. Next week February 19th, 2024. Respectfully submitted: Margaretta

LECCHINI'S ABSTRACT ART REVIVES THE SOUL

By Margaretta wa Gacheru Mark Lecchini is one architect I know who doesn’t see a dichotomy between art and architecture. “After all,” he tells BD Life, “both are concerned with issues of composition and proportion, of harmony and balance.” With that in mind, one can understand how a man who builds homes that stand in the leafy suburbs of Nairobi can also be having his second solo exhibition at one off art gallery in rosslyn currently. It's true that he left a successful architectural firm in UK to return to the land where both his parents were born. But again, the man feels strongly that “There is art in architecture and architecture in fine art.” But to examine the giant diptychs that fill the walls of One Off’s stables gallery is not to see anything resembling a house, church, stadium, or amphitheatre. Instead, Lecchini’s art is perfectly abstract, giant exercises in the composition of color, curve, texture, and layers of oil paints. “I have to be totally relaxed in order to paint,” he says. He admits it’s not a frame of mind that he finds easily (if at all) in Nairobi. So, he rents a small cottage up at the Delamere Conservancy where he spends hours listening to Mother nature in all her diversity, music, mood, pulse, and vitality. His passion for nature is only equal to his love of music, specifically to jazz music, and the kind produced by jazz giants, men like Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Theolonius Monk, and many more. “When I am not listening to nature, I am listening to them,” he admits, almost reverentially. He even listens to them while he paints, which can give one a clue as to what his abstract studies of color actually mean. He leaves meaning up to the viewer however since he strives to reach a transcendental sort of psyche where all logic and reason are ruled out so that all that’s left is pure emotion. “It’s the emotion I aim to paint,” he says, taking note of how different his abstract art is compared to his geometric brick homes, But there is nothing sketzophrenic about Mark’s approach to his style of living. On the contrary, he takes a more philosophical approach and notes the way the Stoics, over 2000 years ago, made more sense to him. A man like Marcus Aurelius described in his book entitled ‘Meditations’ how everything came back to Nature, or basically dust to dust. “I took the title of his book to be the title of this exhibition as well,” he says. ‘Meditations’ might be seen as a series of paintings that all reflect Lecchini’s contemplation of both the beauty of Kenya’s countryside and the elegant, improvisation of jazz saxophonists at the peak of their performance, which was basically in the 1960s in the US. “I was always listening to them as I painted,” he says, as if each of his strokes mirrored the mood of his favorite horn rising and dipping into delicious sounds that Lecchini sought to express emotionally through his paint. Explaining how his first layers of color were created by liquifying his paint with turpentine, thus giving his oils a water color effect on his canvas. He admits he would sometimes make sketches of his designs first, but he preferred letting the lines and curves come as they flowed. Then once he got the initial layers and colors as he wished them to look, he would now drop the turpentine and resort to linseed oil. The linseed would serve to enhance the depth of the oil tones and thicken the paint. So it is now that he will use various sizes of brushes to experiment with which strokes of color resonate best with his mood generated from his music and restful mind. All the names of Mark’s painting are taken from the titles of jazz tunes, mainly from Miles, but also from Coltrane and Monk. Most of them are diptychs, two painting bonded by theme and production. To some viewers who might not care to consider Lecchini’s philosophical approach to his art, his work might look like scratchy lines that a child might apply once they had a packet of colored crayons and pads of paper to mess with. But to the rest of us, one can actually feel the rumble of winds whispering in his ears as he put on canvas what he actually felt. Call it ‘Crystal silence’ or ‘Fire Waltz’, Lecchini’s abstract improvisations revive the soul.

NAIROBI ART FAIR WORKING GROUP LAUNCHED

MINUTES OF VIRTUAL ART FAIR WORKING GROUP MEETING February 12, 2024 8pm on ‘Meet’ app. Present: Maggie, Stanley, Ato, Kevo, Shine, Margaretta Agenda. 1. To appoint a group chair-person. This will be decided as last agenda item 2. Name of committee. Art Fair Working Group or AFWG 2024. 3. What kind of Art Fair do we want? What kind of Art Fair do artists who came last Saturday, February 11 @ Kuona to the first Art Fair meeting say they wanted? Maggie found artists want Art Fair to be ‘memorable, professional, impact-full’ and ongoing 4. What are the vision and mission of the Art Fair? Stanley observed, a Vision is like a dream for what we want our Art Fair to become; a mission relates to the means for getting there. e.g. one vision: to see our Art Fair eventually become a Biennale or to be Best Art Fair in Africa. The mission: to be the best Art Fair in Africa by doing research on art fairs to understand how to achieve our vision; to speak to our advisors, Wambui Collymore, Thom Ogonga, and Eric Menya to get their perspectives. Members were advised to use this week to think about what vision and sense of mission they would propose next week. 5. Our Mandate: Artists entrusted us to steer the art fair to fruition and success. They trust us to keep them posted and also collect ideas that they might want to share. Our mandate is to coordinate all aspects of the art fair, to motivate the artists to start preparing to be in the fair, to inspire them to think about how they can make the art fair a success by creating outstanding works of art. 6. Membership in the Working Group: The group is meant to have seven, not six as we are now. Eric Menya or the AVAC art lawyer might be choices. They could also become advisors (either/or). Advisors now are Wambui, Thom, and either Menya Eric or AVAC lawyer. 7. Work Plan. Eventually, we will need a Secretariat, but that will require funds and a better sense of the requirements for (re-) establishing the Nairobi Art Fair. 7th member: Those proposed to join the group were Eric Menya, Emmaus Kimani, another artist (possibly a female) or a non-artist who could represent a future secretariat, someone who would not have any conflicts of interest, but had practical skills, experience, and wisdom. 8. Strategic Tasks and Duties assigned: 1. Ato and Cheche assigned to look at possible venues for the Art Fair 2. Margaretta to serve as secretary to group, 3. Kevin and Shine to come up with a list of budget items required for Art Fair 4. Maggie to look at viable options for a Secretariat that could take over management of the Art Fair; it would need good managerial skills, registration of the Fair, keeping track of budget and updated audits, and all-round capacity to handle these tasks. 5. Cheche will research for us to decide on our Art Fair’s name. He will find out if Nairobi Art Fair is available to us. Otherwise, what other possible names do we like? 6. Possible Venues for the Art Fair: a. KICC because they had previously offered huge space at low cost and is centrally located. b. Sarit Centre, c. Rosslyn Rivera Mall, d. Village Market, e. The Hub, Karen, f. Nairobi National Museum, g. Waterfront, Karen, h. Two Rivers, i. The Mall Basement, Westlands, j. Uchumi Hyper, Ngong Road (a GoDown which is empty) k. Issues to consider when appraising Spaces: Accessibility, Security, Parking, Size of space, Cost per 3 day l. Researching legalities for registering Art Fair. We will need a CONSTITUTION 6. Choice of Chairperson: Maggie by unanimous vote, assisted by Kevo and Cheche. 7. Next meeting of AFWG: Always Mondays 8pm, virtually on ‘Meet’ app for now. Next week February 19th, 2024. Respectfully submitted: Margaretta

JONNY'S ART REVELATION IS APOCALYPTIC

Jonny Dwek is a jack of all trades and masterful curator of an ‘Art Revelation’ cryptically entitled ‘The End is the Beginning’.

More than a mere art exhibition, Dwek has designed something more like an autobiographical essay etched on land that he swears is no more than an acre, just next door to Heminway’s Hotel in Karen. The visual ‘essay’ is made up of several separate installations composed of either sculptures, (from both West and East Africa), paintings, photography, and architecture, or film, hand-made books, and posters challenging institutional religions. He even makes room for a mini ‘Guest artists’ exhibition including artists whose works he supports, like Paul Onditi, El Tayeb, Sophie Simpkin, David Roberts, Anthony Russell, Jjuuko Hoods , Jemma Davies, and one by Dwek himself. He also includes works by his children, Zack, 18, and Coco, 14, both of whom live with him in the magnificent tree house that he built himself, complete with a sauna, two bathrooms, fire-place and flammable makuti grass-thatched roof.

Each one of his installations reflects facets of this multifaceted man so that as we moved from one montage of his ideas to the next, we are made to feel that we have traveled far with this man, mentally, visually, emotionally. He has taken us around more than an acre of his life. We have traveled far and wide, to West Africa where we sit on stools sculpted as animal fetishes in mahogany, and back into the 18th century when Romanticism flourished and Dwek commissioned Jemma Davies to paint a quasi-copy of a lion mauling a maid similar to an iconic one from the 18th century. It’s the first painting you see upon entering the exhibition, and it’s disquieting. But Dwek says he wanted to convey the way humanity (represented by the maid) is being finished by Nature (represented by the lion) rising up in rebellion against humans who, in their foolish pride, have made a terrible mess of the planet.

Moving on to the present, Dwek has an installation of photography and fine art about the first house that he built. It is a sprawling seven-bedroom home, complete with swimming pool and other amenities. Dwek calls it Shangra la and says it’s for sale. Then comes his Africanah exhibition filled with the West African sculptures and ancestral totems which probably should be returned to their owners. But the traders who are exhibiting them today do too good a business to give them back to their rightful owners. It’s nearly time to go back to ‘the beginning’. But if we’d stopped Dwek’ tour then, we would have missed what lay behind the vine-filled wall concealing possibly the biggest achievement of a man who isn’t just an art collector and occasional painter. He’s also an architect who devised and built this fully-featured tree house that has allows him to stay with his kids who each have a tree house of their own. Theirs are connected to their dad’s place with bridges which are also ‘baby-proof’ since Dwek has a newborn child named Cosmos who comes and goes with his mom who normally stays in a grounded house just a short walk away.

Also a few steps away is the Guest Artists exhibition, including another one by Jemma Davies which she entitles ‘Apocalypse’. It’s one more that Dwek commissioned especially for this show. It’s also another one forecasting the worst outcome for humanity if they don’t change their ways and fast. Now that we have taken a moment to explore Dwek’s amazing tree house, he disappears briefly and then returns with two leather-bound books that he has made and filled. “I’m working on the binding of the third edition of the book I’ve entitled ‘’Letters from the Grave,” Jonny tells BD Life. Why the title? we ask. “Because no one will read these letters until after I am dead,” he tells BD Life with hard-core honesty. But what a treat they will have since Dwek has been documenting his everyday life with paintings and collage meant to illustrate what’s happening with him at the emotional and social level. There is also lots of poetry and quotes from wise men and women he admires. In addition, Dwek has made films that one can find on YouTube. And on Instagram, you can see the history of how Dwek built the ‘Kenya Tree House.’

Ultimately, Dwek has forewarned us of the coming apocalypse. Now we have no excuse: either change our ways fast or we are finished as a species. Sad but true.

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OFF THE RECORD TO MONETIZE WOMEN'S WOMB

Heartstring Players are the most consistent band of storytellers in Kenya.

They offer their fans a monthly stream of entertainment that invariably makes us laugh and always provides stunning endings that are unanticipated. It happened last weekend when Heartstrings came up with ‘Off the Record’ at Alliance Francaise when we certainly didnt expect the one who ultimately popped up with the punchline to be none other than ... no, I won't be a spoiler, Not yet.

The other feature that one consistently finds in their comedies is the regular infusion of current social issues affecting local communities. Among them are problematic gender relations as well asfamily dilemmas, like the hazards of hiring family members to work for you. The play begins with an irascible Clotilda (Bernice Kyalo) complaining to the Cook (Saviour Arnold) about his behavior since he is lazy and takes advantage of being a cousin to her spouse. But by the time Timo (Tim Ndisii) shows up, she's prepared to transfer her complaints to him.

As it turns out, Clotilda has her own insecurities. She's miserable because she doesn’t have a job and all her business start-ups have failed. That is why she needs financial support from him. He doesn't give it because he doesn't have it, he says. When she refuses to believe him, he breaks down his seemingly sumptuous Sh300,000 salary, including all the taxes, etc that he pays out. In so doing he exposes the painful reality that many Kenyans face, which is insufficient funds to make ends meet. Tim finally confesses to his wife that rather than having money to lend her, he is actually in debt up to his ears.

This news leads to the humbling of Clotilda who's remorseful now and filled with sweet apologies to Tim as she hadn't realised how much he'd been keeping his troubles to himself. But in the process of their full disclosures, she confesses that after seven years of wedlock and having no child, she feels guilty about that as well. All this truth-telling is apparently exhausting for Clotilda who we find is fast asleep in the next scene when her two girlfriends barge into her home. They assume she's in bed after being beaten by her man. Coming from a demonstration that called for an end to domestic violence, it's no wonder they are fueled with self righteous accusations against Timo. They also claim that one way she can make money is to become a surrogate mother. This essentially means that she sell her womb to the highest bidder. 'Turns out, that is exactly what she does. (But surrogacy is hardly a feminist ethic). /Apparently she's so desperate to find funds to start her hardware business that she's prepared to lie to her spouse, even as he is elated that, after all this time, he will finally be a dad. Timo is not around when the doctor (Dadson Gakenga) arrives to check up on his patient. That's when she confesses to him that she's married despite a criterion to becoming a surrogate is that you must be single. The doctor looks disturbed by her confession, but as the business is an under-cover affair (rather like the illegal trafficking of children), he keeps quiet. The couple who've commissioned him to find them a surrogate are Joel and his wife, and they have already met Clotilda. What's stunning about this scene is imagining how Clotilda is going to explain her circumstance to Timo, and how the couple who intend to own that baby will cope with the concept of their surrogate being a married woman? To begin with, she tells Timo the kid is his. He is so elated, he decides to have a Baby Shower for the unborn child. He doesn't care that such an occasion is inappropriate. He has already invited 13 friends to celebrate with him.

One of them is the Doctor who had gone to secondary school with Timo. He walks in relaxed, but once he meets his old friend's wife, Clotilda, he practically chokes on the crisps. But when Joel and his wife show up to check on their surrogate, the situation implodes. Now is the time when Clotilda has no choice but to spill the beads. The baby belongs to Joel and his wife. But here comes the punchline. It's for the Doctor to now confess: he never used the fertilised egg because Clotilda was already two months pregnant! Kaboom! The end.

Assess Heartstrings as you will, but they're good at creating stories that make you think.

NEW HEALING CENTRE COUPLES ART AND WELLNESS (POSTED 4.2..2024)

ART AND WELLNESS COMBINE AT CHEZ MAHMUD

BY Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 5.2.24) Tejal Patel was a mathematician, mechanical engineer, interior designer, and teacher before she came to Kenya and finally had a chance to become the ‘self-taught’ artist she had always wanted to be. “My father wouldn’t hear of my becoming an artist,” Tejal tells BD Life. “He finally let me study interior design, but it wasn’t until I came here to be married that I was finally able to pursue my passion for art,” she adds. Admitting she had one art teacher in Class 8 in India who introduced her to painting in oils, she has since learned to love working with acrylics and watercolors, which are the majority of works featured at Chez Mahmud in her first solo exhibition.

Ironically, Tejal cannot escape her scientific background, given the 30 super-realistic paintings are drawn and painted with so much precision, delicacy and sensitivity that one feels they could have been commissioned by some high-quality bird guide book. But they weren’t. The decorative nature of her paintings compels one to ask the age-old question: are you creating Art for art’s sake, or art with a vision and purpose beyond its merely being beautiful? The beauty of her watercolors is probably why her paintings were welcomed for an exhibition at Chez Mahmud.

“We have exhibited a different artist every month since we opened [in late 2022], so we were happy to meet Tejal and support her art with this exhibition,” Zahra Peera, Chez Mahmud’s owner tells BD Life. Explaining that Chez Mahmud is not simply an art gallery, she describes her space as a ‘Wellness Centre’ as well as an art gallery. “Our vision was to realize the connection between art and wellness,” says Zahra, who arrived in Nairobi in February 2020, just before the COVID 19 lockdown. “In a way, Chez Mahmud was born during the pandemic since we were also new to Kenya and feeling our way,” she adds.

Born in Dar es Salaam just as her father ‘Mahmud’ (short for Mohamed) was wrapping us his Makonde Carvers workshop and Curio business, Zahra was whisked away from East Africa to France when she was just two months old. “My father had the workshop in our backyard where he’d employed 30 Makonde carvers to create sculptures which he traded in Germany, France, and UK,” she recalls. In so doing, he was marketing the Makonde brand name when no one in Europe had ever heard of them before. But her father felt compelled to shut his business because everything was being nationalized and many in the private sector were leaving the country at the time. She compared that period with what happened to Asians in Uganda, although there was no comparison between Idi Amin and Julius Nyerere. Asians were not threatened in the same way in Tanzania. However, people were fearful of losing everything they’d worked hard to build in business, so her family quickly left once they realized the direction the country was headed.

In any case, Zahra grew up and went to school in Paris. She studied Hospitality at university and had been working in management for an international hotel firm, based in Johannesburg for the past 13 years. ‘’But I decided I’d prefer working for myself in order to assist others rather than merely work for the company and its shareholders,” she says. That is when her interest in wellness developed as a business model, including both wellness and fine art at Chez Mahmud. “We run workshops in yoga and meditation. And as we’re concerned with issues of mental health, we work with a psychotherapist, a family facilitator [or counselor], and two sound therapists,” Zahra explains. After that, she invites me to experience something she enthusiastically calls ‘Sound therapy.’

Then she calls in Reza Naheed who works with the combination of sound, energy, and healing. She describes her gift to me as ‘a sample’, but an hour and a half later, I feel I have been deeply moved by a series of resonating sounds meant to literally touch and heal the heart, soul, and mind. That’s the idea anyway, and it seems to work. Reza collaborates with his partner to work with an assortment of percussive instruments, everything from gongs, glass bowels, and cymbals to drums, cowbells, and shakers of all kinds. So whether you go to Chez Mahmud to see the art of Tejal or to meet Zahra of the Wellness Centre, it’s worth a trip to Kitisuru to see and feel what’s happening there.