SAM NJUGUNA: CHARMED BY LOCAL LANDSCAPES

                 CHARMED BY WELL-POPULATED LOCAL LANDSCAPES

                                          Samuel Njuguna Njoroge with his art at Village Market, October 19, 2021

By Margaretta wa Gacheru

Samuel Njuguna Njoroge has been perfecting his landscape painting techniques since he was a child growing up in Banana Hill.

No ordinary ‘hill’, Banana Hill had a studio at the time where the young Njoroge used to go and immerse himself in the space where local artists were teaming up and dreaming of ways to become better painters and sculptors by sharing their art materials as well as their skills. All so-called ‘self-taught’ artists, they were mentoring one another and including young Njoroge in the process.

Among those early workers were artists like James Mbuthia, Sebastian Kiarie, Martin Kamuyu, Joseph Cartoon, Njuguna’s big brother Willie Wamuti, Rahab Njambi, and of course, the founder of the studio, Shine Tani.

“The studio was my first art school,” recalls Njoroge whose solo exhibition just opened up on the top floor of Village Market and runs through November 1st. Technically, he’s the solo painter while junk art sculptor Alex Wainaina shares the space, contrasting Njuguna’s paintings with his metallic butterflies and African masks hung decoratively to enhance the overall interest, charm, and beauty of this colorful exhibition.

Njuguna has been part of the local art scene since 2004 when he was still in secondary school. Ever eager to improve his knowledge and artistic skills, the young painter has frequently moved into new art spaces over the years. He was part of the Nuru studio, based in Ruaka, where he first met Mbuthia Maina who was and still is closely associated with Maasai Mbili in Kibera.

He shifted to Kilele Art Centre with Patricia Njeri, John Ndungu, Irene Wanjiru, and Alex Wainaina, also in Ruaka where he now has own home studio.

Njuguna has also given his time to teaching children’s art, first through RaMoMa with James Mbuthia at the children’s wing of Kenyatta Hospital, and then in Kibera with Mbuthia and the late Solo 7 at the children’s independent School of Ideas.

Meanwhile, he has been exhibiting in countless group shows, everywhere from Nairobi National Museum, Village Market and Dusit D2 to Talisman Restaurant, Manjano, and Photizo Gallery. He has also exhibited abroad, primarily in Asia in Taiwan. But this is the first time he has taken over the whole top floor of Village Market with more than 30 paintings ranging from Sh50,000 to Sh300,000.

Having the opportunity to watch the development and growth of Njuguna’s artistic style, I have seen fascinating developments in his approach to his landscape paintings. Initially, he, like so many young painters, created works that he thought might have a market, such as boats, particularly dhows that tourists frequenting the Coast, tend to like taking home as reminders of the beauty they encountered in Kenya.

In the process, he developed techniques in detailed drawing and in blending compatible colors such as can be seen in his current shows. What makes his progression of interest to me is his finally coming around to painting the beauty of his own regional territory.

This show reveals far more interest in local scenes which technically are known as peri-urban areas. These are transitional regions which are quasi-rural but still closely linked to urban Nairobi through transit systems that are ever-thriving with energy, dynamism and bustling business.

In fact, Njuguna’s scenes just on the outskirts of his hometown, Ruaka, look vaguely familiar. Yet Njoroge transforms images that might otherwise seem mundane and ordinary by highlighting quirky details with dashes of bright colors that make his canvases come to life.

“I paint mainly in acrylics, but overlay my paintings with a light layer of oil,” says Njoroge who adds the oils enhance to the sheen and sparkle of his color schemes.

He still fantasizes about boats at the Coast, and indeed, he boasts that one of his dhows just got sold to Americans who are said to a whole collection of global boats back home.

But the charm of this exhibition is his bringing his talents to neighborhoods that he knows best. It’s true, he is hardly the first local artist to paint matatus and village markets, lines of laundry and country bus stops. But his blending of colors is distinctive, and especially his skies are exceptional. They have a hint of Van Gogh’s blue hues that draw you into his scenes and allow you to appreciate the richness of his green trees, the redness of his ochre soils, and durability of old matatus heaped with excess baggage. These are familiar images of Kenya today, including lots of busy working people enjoying the brightness of the day.

 

NYANGA'S WORLD PREMIERE AT KENYA NATIONAL THEATRE

            KENYAN OPERA HAS WORLD PREMIERE AT NATIONAL THEATRE

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (published 22 October 2021)

Opera is a genre of theatre that few Kenyans know much about.

It’s primarily a European thing where a story gets told on stage with songs, fabulous costuming and elaborate sets. Yet it’s different from musical theatre because practically all the storylines are sung, accompanied by a full orchestra and chorus that tend to be quite magnificent and expensive as well.

But as of last night, opera was no longer something alien to Kenyans. Thanks to Rhoda Ondeng-Wilhelmsen there was a world premiere yesterday of ‘Nyanga: Runaway Grandmother’ at Kenya National Theatre which will be restaged tonight and through the weekend.

Ms Ondeng-Wilhelmsen is a professional opera singer who has performed widely in Europe but who always felt compelled to introduce her favorite art form to her fellow Kenyans.

“So I wrote the story of my grandmother Nyanga with the intent of seeing Kenya’s first opera having its world premiere right here on the Kenya National Theatre stage,” says Rhoda who has a cameo role playing an elderly Nyanga at the opening and closing of the opera. “My performance ‘bookends’ the production,” she tells Weekender as she dashes off to the show’s first full rehearsal several days before last night’s dazzling opening.

‘Nyanga’ had its world premiere last night, complete with a 40-person chorus, 38-person professional orchestra, children’s choir from Kibera, and 10-person dance troupe, all of whom are Kenyan. The three exceptions were baritones Katumba Ben from Uganda and Lief Jone Olberg from Norway and UK soprano Rebekah Dawn, the latter two playing missionaries who introduce Nyanga to Christianity.

However, ‘Nyanga’ isn’t Kenya’s first opera. That distinction goes to ‘Ondieki, the Fisherman’ says Rhoda who was no less determined to bring her grandmother’s story to the Kenyan stage, complete with all the grandeur, beauty, and professionalism that she had seen in every opera she’d attended or performed in overseas.

Having staged and directed a preview performance of ‘Nyanga’ at her home late last year, Rhoda left stage directing this time round to Julisa Rowe, musical directing to conductor Levy Wataka, vocal instructing to Ciru James, and executive production to Michael James who also re-arranged the original music and libretto by Francis Chandler.

“The transformation of ‘Nyanga’ between then and now is enormous,” says James who keeps a low profile, but has been instrumental in seeing that the cast, chorus, and orchestra were auditioned and expanded effectively. At its core, the opera is about that transitional moment when Christian missionaries arrived on the scene and locals either resisted or embraced their education, religion, and radically new way of living.

Nyanga was Rhoda’s grandmother in real life and the ‘runaway’ who made the radical choice to embrace the new religion with its promise of everlasting life in Jesus Christ. “Basically, Nyanga missed her mother terribly, and thought the promise of immortality would enable her to meet her mother again,” says James.

For Rhoda, Nyanga was a courageous woman and pioneer whose choices led to generations of women in her family getting educated, unlike many women and girls in the Kenyan countryside.

The opera itself is a marvelous love story as well as a major theatrical feat. Why? Because we’re seeing the masterful merging of musical elements, the full orchestra and all those marvelous voices, (especially the principles (Lyndie Shinyega as Nyanga, Caleb Wachira as Joel, and Anthony Mwangi as Nyanga’s father and village’s wise medicine man), all of whom are double-cast.

Then there were those simple set designs that made the most of rustic digital village backdrops. There were the scene changes that were practically seamless, including the contrasting use of both traditional and modern instruments, and the beautiful expression of Nyanga’s bustling pre-colonial village life.

Nyanga’s father was the prophetic voice who foresaw the coming of change to their lives. He initially wasn’t prepared for his daughter ‘running away’ with these renegade Christians. But when she and her mission boyfriend Joel come back to ask for her father’s blessing, the wise man accommodates the inevitable.

Clearly, Ondeng-Wilhelmsen is proud of her grandmother for her courageous independence and determination to move forward with her life. Whether Nyanga’s motivation was mainly to see her mother in the afterlife or her love for Joel or love of Jesus Christ, her fateful decision is the reason Rhoda is the woman she is today. The opera is her means of commemorating her grandmother’s courage. It’s also her gift to Kenya, opening up a whole new cultural genre for Kenyans to appreciate and enjoy.

KOBO ARTISTS COLLABORATE

KOBO ARTISTS COLLABORATE WITH EMERGING TALENTS

                                                                                              Onyis Martin

                             By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 14 October 2021)

David Thuku describes Kobo Trust as ‘not a gallery or an artists’ collective, but a space where interesting young artists are welcome to come and collaborate with us.”

The ‘us’ includes established artists like Thuku, Onyis Martin, Paul Njihia, Nadia Wamunyu, Lemek Sompoika, and Deng Chol who have been based at Kobo Trust for donkey’s years.  The ‘interesting young artists’ with whom they have been collaborating in recent times include Onesmus Okamar, Taabu Munyoki, Timothy Ochola, Rasto Cyprian, and ‘guest artist’ Sheila Bayley who was invited to take part in the Open Studio and group Exhibition currently running in the Trust’s vast assembly hall.

                                                                                                Onesmus Okamar

All eleven artists have one or more of their latest creations in the hall until early next month. And while the ‘open studio’ idea was only a day-long event, the hall is just a few steps away from the artists’ studios where you’ll find more artistic works in progress. For what is clear about Kobo artists is that their creativity is an ongoing flow of energy and non-stop ideas.

In the exhibition hall, it’s Onesmus’s painted ladies that greet you in the foyer. Wrapped in colorful cloaks, blankets, and scarves, these sweet-looking sisters are, according to the title, “Solving [problems] together’’. All of Onesmus’ young women look like feminists in the making, girls likely to stick together through thick and thin.

Inside the hall, each artist has their own space where they reveal their contrasting characters. They all may be painters, but each have his or her individual style, unique subject of focus, medium of expression, and media mix.

                                                                                           Deng Chol

For instance, Njihia fills one exquisite oil painting with faces of young school boys. They’re children packed together in a single clan, filled with limitless energy and apparent enthusiasm for moving as quickly as they can.

Children are also featured in the paintings by Cyprian Rasto, a gifted young artist who found his way to Kobo while still in secondary school.

Adults are also interrogated in many of the remaining works. Their forms are scattered all over the hall, often as familiar images that have been re-imagined in fresh, new forms. Possibly the freshest is the cheeky painting of an ‘African Astronaut’ by Kobo newcomer, Timothy Ochola. In contrast, Thuku’s three figures remind us of beings he’d introduced in earlier shows, only now they are in new circumstances. They’re having to cope with COVID protocols and the issue of masks.

                                                                                                Paul Njihia

Onyis Martin also modifies images of men who have previously served as his iconic visual storytellers. Now he’s more focused on faces and flashy suits, as if he’s embarking on a new visual chapter in his storytelling strategy.

Lemek Sompoika still has his one-man exhibition of mainly abstract artworks at Red Hill Gallery. But the one figurative painting in that show sparked so much attention, it inspired Lemok to create more agile Maasai morans, each leaping at Kobo to phenomenal aerial heights.

Meanwhile, Nadia’s focus is naturally more on women than men. But she has modified her black and white nudes, re-shaping them into intriguingly angular shapes and lines that rouse more curiosity than self-consciousness. No longer can they be seen as nudes. Instead, they feel semi-abstract and startling for their newness and their suggestion that Nadia is also on a new track of artistic discovery.

                                                                                                Rasto 

Abstract art also finds a home at Kobo, first and foremost in the artworks of the Sudan-born painter Deng Chol. He creates colorful pieces that appear to be complex puzzles of intersecting lines and hot wires that seem to have special powers of their own.

Two other semi-abstract artists in the show are Taabu Munyoki who works closely with Thuku, experimenting with paper-cuts as well as pen and ink, and guest artist Sheila Bayley whose dense line drawings create intense focal points that keep one wondering: what’s inside these hot spots of grid-like designs? Are the doodles or high-rise living spaces? It’s interesting works either way.

Taabu was a Kenyatta University fine arts graduate when she was drawn to work with Thuku whose experimental approach to art had a special appeal for her. It differed greatly from what she’d been taught at KU and she appreciated that.

                                                                                            Nadia Wamunya

That experimental edge of Thuku pops up in a second phase of his presence in the Kobo show. This time he’s trying out a new cut-paper technique that he’s shy to talk about. He simply says he’s still working out how to create negative space in his art. So his experimental alchemy carries on.

                                                                                              David Thuku

 

 

LIQUID ARTS PRESENT A SINGLE MOM IN FIGHT MODE

 A SINGLE MOM IN FIGHT MODE

                                                        Peter Tosh, founder, director of Liquid Arts Productions

By Margaretta wa Gacheru

In Liquid arts’ latest production, Barua, the playwright Kelvin Manda sets out to do a noble thing. It is to present a sympathetic story about the plight of the single mother. And yet, on Saturday night I couldn’t help feeling Barua had backfired since I have rarely seen a more unsympathetic single mom than Vivian Nyawira’s presentation of this sassy young former party girl, Sally.

In the opening moments of the play, we meet Sally lambasting her House Help Indiza (Kui Githuku) who, for me, was the most sympathetic and sweet spirited house help that one would want to have taking care of your baby. Sally shows no appreciation her surrogate’s efforts during her absence to give the child all she needs. Instead, she ignores the child, goes for a drink and continues insulting her maid.

We never learn much about Sally in the play except that she has friends who, like her, love to dance and party. So when they all arrive, Sally quickly swings into her frivolous party mode. That’s until maid and baby appear. Then we see Sally swing back into her abusive mode. She throws out everyone except two friends, Grace (Sandra Ndindo) and Abu (Felix Peter), who lament the loss of their party buddy. Sally meanwhile doesn’t go near her kid. It seems the sight of the maid and the child triggers an inner rage that explodes volcanically, spontaneously.

Manda apparently wanted to throw in some comic relief at this point, so he creates a buffoon in the form of Speedy (Dadon Gakengo), the security guard who has delusions of being an actual cop. In a sense, he parodies Kenya’s local ‘kanjos’ (City Council cops) who rough the public up for nothing other than to asset their power and squeeze blood money from those who can least afford.

Speedy feels like a big distraction in the play. He’s a nuisance, but at the same time, when he generates a fight scene with Sally’s boss, Robert (Majestic Steve) who had been persuaded by Sally’s coworker Maureen (Mary Muthee), to come and meet the newborn, one can see why the boss wants to clobber the foolish security guard.

Sally isn’t home when the Boss and Maureen arrive but when it finally dawns on them that Sally’s not around, they leave.

The one other character who grabs our attention and gives us something more substantial than party scenes and men behaving like scrappy little boys, is French (Stephen Mwangi) who is the actual ‘disappeared dad’ who has returned to see Sally and the little girl that they made.

French is the one person, other than Indiza, who seems to really care about the kid. Indiza is clearly dedicated, but the arrival of this guy is slightly mysterious. Where has he come from? Why did he disappear? How does he dare show his face after leaving sally alone?

None of these questions get answered. But what he does tell Speedy (who wasn’t listening) is a graphic replay of that fateful night when he and Sally conceived the child. He doesn’t make excuses, although he admits he only stayed in town two weeks. That was all the time he had with Sally, who when she arrives back home, tells him, even before he can say a word, to get out of her house.

What happens next is the high point of the play. It’s when we finally see Sally come out with her true feelings, her emotional mix of anger, loneliness, alienation, and utter disappointment that he’d vanished when she most needed him. It is the only time I felt Sally honestly expresses her pain and the panic she genuinely feels about being a single mother.  

She literally spits out her hostile questions at him as if they were flaming hot spears: where were you when I needed you, when I was laughed at on campus, when I had to weather all the insults alone? She doesn’t give him time to answer since she already knows he has no response. Sadly, she has already resigned herself to being alone and a single mother. The problem is she isn’t handling it well.

It’s only at the end of the play when the ‘lost baby’ is found in the arms of Indiza, that we see a speck of Sally’s maternal interest in her kid. Otherwise, Sally’s character is raw, rude, and full of rage. Which could be the truth of what many pregnant women feel.   

 

 

 

 

ABUSHARIAA SOLO SHOW AT TRIBAL ART IS DELICIOUS

ABUSHARIAA AT TRIBAL GALLERY

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 10.10.21)

Ahmed Abushariaa is one of three Sudanese artists currently exhibiting their art around the town. Salah Elmur’s art is one of eight contemporary East African artists on show at Red Hill Gallery, and Miska Mohammed is having her first solo exhibition at Circle Art Gallery.

All three are graduates of Sudan University’s illustrious School of Fine and Applied Arts, as are several other brilliant Sudanese artists who have shared their art in Nairobi, including Eltayeb Dawelbait, Rashid Diab, and Yassir Ali among others.

Like Miska, Abushariaa is also having a solo exhibition, only his is at Tribal Gallery in Loresho, where he has had several solo shows before, most recently in early 2020 shortly before COVID-19 came crashing in on Kenya and the rest of the world.

Filling all the walls of the many rooms and corridors of Tribal Gallery, Abushariaa tells BDLife that this exhibition is different from his previous ones which tended to focus on a specific theme. But in this case, his memories have taken him to many parts of his early life when he was still living in northern Sudan.

One series he entitles ‘Celebrations,’ which highlight joyful memories he recalls of harvest times and weddings, happy times generally. In others he pays homage to ancient civilizations that left pyramids and symbolic hieroglyphs not far from his home. And in one of his most spectacular paintings, he paints his hometown of Eltakala Abbashar, as he remembers seeing it for the first time as a child, having climbed up to the top of his house and onto the roof to get what he calls an ‘aerial view’ of his town.

This is the one large painting that includes both watercolors, inks, and acrylic paints. It’s a feat only achieved by stretching his canvas and then covering it with watercolor paper since he says watercolors do not work well with canvas. But the combination works beautifully, especially as he’s a master of inks and watercolors. Plus, his aerial perspective enables us to see into the far distance of his city, including the river Nile flowing straight across the town.

Not all his paintings are based on his memories. For instance, his ‘Revolution’ series pays homage to the women who he says led the marches against the former president Omar el-Bashir which ultimately resulted in his fall from power and the hopeful ushering in of a new day. The four-part series devoted to women leaders are all painted is a regal purple hue.

One of the elders of the Revolution, Mohamed Matar is also painted in his favorite sky-blue. And another set of four is painted in the color of the soil of another city he holds dear, Omdurman.

But Abushariaa’s show is not short on multi-colors, particularly the vivid watercolors that he has experimented with virtually all his artistic life.  “In Sudan, we didn’t have acrylics or a wide variety of colors in those times, so I used to experiment producing colors using everything from hibiscus, tobacco, and tea to coffee, saffron, and smoky ash.” Knowing from an early age that he didn’t want to do anything other than fine art, he majored in Oriental Decoration and Arabic Calligraphy at university.

It was after university that he had the good fortune to meet a Mennonite couple who saw the paintings he created while working as a graphic designer and using printer’s ink to draw on leftover scraps of paper considered trash by his employer. The couple wanted to buy everything he’d produced but as he had no idea how to value his art, he gave it all away.

“Upon their return from the US, they brought me a huge box of art materials,” he says. Their gifts constituted a turning point in his life since they brought him paints, brushes, and the acrylics he had never used before.

Today, Abushariaa has exhibited his art all over the world, and he says one reason he has had these opportunities is because he aims to create paintings that make people glad to be in a room with his art.

“I love to create paintings that make people happy,” he says with a smile. He admits that wasn’t easy for him to do during the pandemic, the news about which was invariably depressing.

“So early on, I decided to turn off my TV, and focus on my art. I relied on my memories as my source of inspiration. Otherwise, I couldn’t handle the stress,” he adds.

At Tribal Gallery, Abushariaa’s art runs from USD650 up to USD12,000.

 

 

 

 

 

SIX WOMEN STORYTELLERS STAR IN THE NAIROBI EDITION OF THEATRE FOR ONE

                  SIX WOMEN STORYTELLERS TELL BOLD, BRAZEN TALES

By Margaretta wa Gacheru

Theatre for One: We are Here (Nairobi Edition) is a fresh, ingenious and intimate approach to theatre that I was fortunate to experience for two nights last week. On both evenings, I experienced three different performances, one for each of the six Kenyan women selected to be involved in this experimental approach to theatre which previously has been staged all over the world. The six included Sitawa Namwalie, Mumbi Kaigwa, Aleya Kassam, Anne Moraa, Laura Ekumbo, and Mercy Mutisya.

Conceived twenty years ago by an American thespian, Christine Jones, Theatre for One is all about the one-on-one experience of the performer and their audience of one. Jones apparently felt the theatre experience is something to be shared intimately. Its performative style is interactive in that the audience of o-e is encouraged to engage with the actor, which to me sounds a bit risky. But that element of spontaneity is meant to be part of this experimental concept of theatre. It’s worked so well in the past that the ‘Nairobi edition’ was coproduced by New York University’s Art Centre in Abu Dhabi and Octopus Theatricals of New York.

In the past, Theatre for One was a live, face-to-face experience. But the coronavirus compelled the coproducers to take their shows online.

It worked for me first when Aleya Kassam performed ‘The Interview’ which she also wrote. She is in a bathroom setting since she says the room makes her feel closer to the sea. And since she says she is a jen (a kind of mermaid), this makes sense. She is in the process of ‘interviewing’ for a replacement of her dearest friend whom she recently lost. Her persona is alluring, but rather spooky and unsettling. That also makes sense since strange superstitions have been spun for centuries by seafaring sailors who got lured by these mysterious water-women, and then lost once they’ve fallen under their spell. Aleya’s gen has that alluring style that can easily entice someone to believe her sweet story and follow her back into the sea.

                                                   Three of the six: Aleya Kassam, Laura Ekumbo, Anne Moraa

‘The Interview’, like all the performances, was only about ten minutes long. But that was sufficient for these six professional women actors to draw you totally into their unusual tales.

The one story that left me wanting more was Sitawa Namwalie’s ‘Killer Cop lives fast life’. All six storyteller had an edgy feminist flare to their performance, but this one is quite scandalous. Sitawa plays an undercover cop who is shameless about her having shot dead two men. To her, they deserved whatever she gave, but the media isn’t telling her side of the story. We meet her after she’d been reading headlines that misconstrue her actions, and she is not pleased about that. At the same time, she’s delighted that her deeds have triggered the military to be called up to search for her, a ‘mankiller’. She’s amused that she is seen as a threat to national security!

Sitawa gave us enough of her story to whet our appetites. But then, her time is up, and we are left panting for more from this fiercely iconoclastic ex-cop.

Then a few minutes later, Laura Ekumba casually presented a chatty script entitled ‘Aging’. She is getting set to attend her own birthday party, but she’s feeling queasy about turning 26. She claims it’s because she hasn’t picked the perfect song for the day. But really, we get the feeling she’s more concerned about time passing her by. She keeps a journal in which she remembers poignant experiences from the ages of three up until now, suggesting that time is weighing on her thought, as if she is on the verge of getting old. Yet the beauty of her performance is in her almost childlike innocence. At 26, she’s still young enough to care about a song and a dress. One feels her world is just opening up and she is ready for it.

On night two, I experienced my first glitch and ended up missing Mercy Mutisya’s story. It made me sad, but also determined not to miss the final two: ‘The Beanie’ by Mumbi Kaigwa and ‘Cucu’ by Anne Moraa. Again, they portrayed women who were startling for their strength of character, and even more startling because both break out of conventional womanly molds and burst out with defiant force.

In Mumbi’s case, her character is a filmmaker whose technicians mess up a critical moment in a shoot. Her reaction is emotional, even violent in her outrage expressed towards her crew. She is forced to confront the impact of her unchecked emotions which come off as cruel and unkind. She has broken free from a soft, comforting, maternal role, but landed in a mudslinging, almost macho style of violence. Thankfully, she begins at the end to become more self-aware.

In Anne’s case, it’s her grandmother that apparently has been happily married for 40 years. But then, when she is out chopping wood, her husband comes and kicks her violently. Instead of absorbing the pain and keeping quiet, she takes her ax and chops off his hand. Amazingly, the story ends as if “they lived happily ever after’.

These are new women whose characters we have rarely seen before. And they are awesome, unsettling, bold, and brazen in their fearlessness. We expect to see more of them soon.

HELLMUTH: A COLLECTOR WITH A PASSION FOR EAST AFRICAN ART

                    A COLLECTOR WITH A PASSION FOR EAST AFRICAN ART

 

                                       Hellmuth Rossler outside Red Hill Gallery with painting by Samuel Githinji

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (Posted October 5, 2021)

As a trained biochemist and pharmacist, Hellmuth Rossler had lived and worked all over Africa in the health care sector for more than 35 years. But he didn’t become a serious collector of contemporary African art until the mid-1990s when he met Gallery Watatu’s Ruth Schaffner.

“I’d collected a bit of local art as a youth in Germany, but I’d never thought of [East African] art as anything other than souvenir curios,” Hellmuth tells BDLife

“I didn’t know that such a thing as contemporary African art existed in Kenya until I met Ruth who showed me the works of amazing young artists like Meek Gichugu, Sane Wadu and others,” he adds.

                                                                                       Peterson Kamwathi

“It was like a revelation to him,” says his Dutch wife Erica who shares her husband’s passion for African art. “But ar\\with the real eye for art,” she adds.

Ruth was instrumental in opening Hellmuth’s eyes to the art of everyone from Jak Katarikawe, Joel Oswaggo, and Wanyu Brush to Ancent Soi, Zach Mbuno, and others

But just across the street from Ruth was Mahindra Shah’s Sarang Gallery, which wasn’t exactly a rival to Ruth. But definitely, when artists brought her their art, and she rejected it for any number of reasons, they often crossed the street and sold their paintings to Shah who proved to be a life-saver to many young artists who were struggling to make ends meet.

“Mahindra had an amazing collection of artworks,” recalls Hellmuth who got his start buying and collecting East African art on Standard Street at both Watatu and Sarang. Many of Ruth’s favored artists also sold their works to Shah, But there were others, including refugee artists from Congo, Sudan, Uganda, and South Africa who Hellmuth found at Sarang.

One young Sudanese artist whose works he especially liked was Ahmed Abusharia, who at the time was working as an artist-in-residence at Paa ya Paa Art Centre with Elimo Njau. The recent graduate of Sudan University’s College of Fine and Applied Art, Abusharia had only arrived in Nairobi in 1996. But he placed a lot of his art at Sarang where Hellmuth bought much of it.

Having just recently done an inventory of the artworks, including both paintings and sculptures, in his collection, Hellmuth easily identified Abusharia as the most well represented artist in his treasure trove of works. He owns around 60 of his paintings. And while the works themselves are beautiful, Hellmuth also finds it fascinating to see the way Abusharia’s art has evolved and developed over time.

                                                                                         Michael Musyoka

But as much as he appreciates the Kampala-based Abusharia, the artist is not in Red Hill’s current group exhibition entitled ‘A Glimpse of a Collection of Contemporary East African Art.”

The show is definitely only a glimpse of Hellmuth’s vast collection (which includes over 500 works). It only features eight artists out of the scores whose works he’s assembled over the years. The eight are Peterson Kamwathi, Shabu Mwangi, Justus Kyalo, Beatrice Wanjiku, Michael Musyoka, Dennis Muraguri, the Zambian sculptor Thom Phiri, and another Sudanese artist, Salah Elmur. But even if there are only eight, and even if none are for sale, it is still worth seeing these few since they are among East Africa’s leading professional artists.

When Hellmuth began collecting, he was still working in health care, and he wasn’t yet living in Kenya. That would only come in 2010 after he and Erica retired, to start up their own Art Gallery. “So initially, we sent all the art back to Germany. But once we moved to Kenya, we brought most of it back to Red Hill,” says Hellmuth. In part, he says this is because he feels it’s important for Kenyan art to remain in the country.

                                                                                       Kamwathi Peterson

 Explaining that his primary incentive for collecting East African art in the first place was his passion for it, Hellmuth insists he never intended to buy art for its investment potential or resale value, although he knows many people see it as in that light.

He is fully aware his collection is worth far more today than what he originally paid it. But for him, it’s the passion for the paintings that gives him the greatest pleasure.

“I think I will be periodically giving more ‘glimpses’ of my collection in the future, although I don’t intend to sell any of it,” he says, noting that his gallery is not a full-time commercial venture.

“An exhibition [like Glimpses] is more about raising people’s awareness of the reality and beauty of contemporary East African art,” Hellmuth says.