ATHENA, THE ELEPHANT QUEEN 'ON TRIAL' BY YOUTH THEATRE KENYA

                                    AFRICAN QUEEN ON TRIAL FOR MURDER

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted October 4 2021)

‘On Trial’ is an interactive theatre production staged by Youth Theatre Kenya and presented last weekend at Alliance Francaise.

It is also part of an outreach project initiated by the filmmakers Mark Deeble and Victoria Stone who produced the award-winning documentary, “The Elephant Queen’ which premiered in Kenya early in 2020. By then, the film had already won accolades in Toronto, London, at Sundance Film Festival in Utah. But what concerned Debble and Stone was that Kenyans themselves receive the story of Athena, the elephant queen and matriarch who guided and guarded her large elephant family.

They also wanted children to learn more about their environment and about issues like the one addressed in ‘On Trial’ which is the conflict between animals and human beings. To that end, they worked with the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development and with artists to develop a 28-book series of children’s books to promote literacy and wildlife awareness among Kenyan youth.

They also worked with an ‘elephant queen’ theatre team who devised three different scripts, each addressing a different age group and revolving around animal characters in the film.

‘On Trial’ is one of those three and focuses on the elephant queen herself, Athena. In sharp contrast to the role she plays in the film, which is that of the all-wise, compassionate, and heroic leader of her family (who in real life reside in Tsavo East National Park), Athena is now an alleged criminal and murderer.

The script combines courtroom realism with the fantasy of actually charging this iconic creature with a crime that we, the audience are meant to adjudicate with a vote that could determine Athena’s fate.

As we learned from the show’s director, Jazz Moll, at the end of On Trial, the outcome had been pre-determined, meaning the so-called vote had been rigged.

“We had tried following the people’s choice a couple of times, but in every instance, the vote was for her innocence,” admits Moll. “We felt there was more realism in the way we ended it.”

The charge against Athena (played by Rob Zenga) was simple. She had killed the four-year-old boy Efa Gadisa, and was now charged with his murder. It seems she had been with her young cub, foraging for food, when she arrived at the Gadisa farm. The events that followed were contested, but apparently, the moment Efa’s father (Clinton Opondo) saw Athena, he pulled out his spear and was preparing the throw it at her cub. She charged the boy before the father could release his spear. So who was the aggressor? Him or her?

On stage, there was an actual courtroom scene where   both counsels gave persuasive arguments, although one (Aketch Koffi) brought tear-jerking witnesses while the other (Kael Njihia) called a scientist (Martin Kigondu) and a character witness for Athena (Matilda Igathe) who is actually in the courtroom.

In the end, the cast, despite having devised several endings, depending on whether Athena was found innocent or guilty by the people, deemed her guilty.

But in the course of the questioning, one could see Edwin Gadisa was as responsible for threatening Athena as she was for attacking Gadisa’s son. The animal behavioralist laid out the fact that humans have infringed on elephant land, not vice versa. He also explained how family-oriented and gentle are most elephants, except when their offspring are threatened. Otherwise, Athena as matriarch of her family, had an important role to play in educating, guiding, and protecting her people, especially the young and vulnerable.

The Maasai character witness went further to say that her people had coexisted for centuries with elephants and had few conflicts.

But in the end, it was as if the deck was stacked against Athena from the start. To accept Athena as ‘innocent’ would necessitate blaming human beings for infringing on elephant rights, but that wasn’t going to happen. Even if Athena felt threatened by the spear-throwing father and thus, attacked out of self-defense, a community’s child had died. And the mob wanted her blood.

The idea of bringing out complex environmental issues through courtroom drama is a fine idea. It wasn’t clear how dancers miming the ideas being dramatized in court advanced the message of environmental awareness. Using rap (by Wairimu Maina) was far more effective means of grabbing people’s attention.

Either way, On Trial’s interactive theatre kept us on our toes and eager to see the next interactive show that Youth Theatre Kenya will stage.

GERALDINE'S 100TH EXPO HER FINEST YET

          HUNDREDTH EXHIBITION MARKS GRACEFUL FINALE FOR ARTIST

By Margaretta wa Gacheru

Celebrating her 100^th major art exhibition tonight at the Village Market, at aged 83, Geraldine Robards vows that this one will be her very last one-woman show. But whether this intrepid artist will stick to that vow or not, there is no denying that her 100^th exposes the vibrant vision of an artist who still seems to be in her prime.

In fact, all 65 paintings in her ‘Reflections’ showcase have been painted in the past year. Only a few works were shown during a previous private exhibition that she held at her personal gallery at her Karen home.

Otherwise, many of her eye-catching paintings veritably explode with flaming colors that seem to reflect a spirit aglow with limitless passion for all things artistic, and an energy that feels irrepressible and in denial of the need to slow down.

“I have slowed down a bit since I’ve had a few physical challenges,” Geraldine admits. But she refuses to let them stop her from painting in six-hour sprints that can easily run seven or eight when her spirit dictates that she not stop.

Reflecting many of the themes that have been emblematic in her art over the years, her 100th show reveals her consistent love of the sea, coastal villages, indigenous trees, and the natural beauty of Kenya. She also has lots to say visually about our world in transition. At the same time, she’s painted several abstract works of color, texture, and tone, all reflecting the affirmative yet inquisitive spirit of the artist. A number of these also expose Geraldine’s fascination with universal images of starry skies and inter-planetary happenings beyond the scope of our mortal gaze.

“My hundredth exhibition will be especially dear to me because my daughter Sarah has come from America to be by my side. She has also brought her friend, Sir Sebastian Coe, president of World Athletics, who might share a few words at the opening,” Geraldine tells BD Life.

None of her other offspring were able to come for the opening since they are scattered around the planet. One lives in China, another in Canada, and the third stays in the UK. “All of them are busy working people so I respect their need to stick with their jobs,” says Geraldine who has been a working artist practically all her life.

And while her first affinity is for painting, this octogenarian has spent many years teaching and mentoring, both at universities like Makerere in Uganda and McGill in Canada, and in villages like Makueni where she worked with several local women groups. “Men were also members of these groups since I was sharing skills to boost all of their income-generating capacities,” she says. One of her biggest challenges was helping the women to diversify their artistic production.

“Many of them were weavers of sisal baskets, so we wanted to show them how [by using looms] to adapt their weaving skills to create colorful woven wall hangings, mats, and tapestries,” says Geraldine who adds that those items are now selling all over the world.

But some of her most memorable years as a teacher, she recalls, were at Makerere where she taught several Kenyans, including the award-winning Kisii stone sculptor, Elkana Ong’esa.

Meanwhile, out of the 100 exhibitions that Geraldine has held over the years, there were many that took place outside East Africa, in places like China, Europe, UK, US, and Canada. She says one place where her art shows were the consistently successful was in China where she exhibited no less than five times. “The Chinese have a deep appreciation of contemporary art, and they especially liked my abstract works,” she adds.

Primarily painting in oils on canvas, Geraldine also has several watercolors and a few works painted in acrylics. But she admits she has been slow to make the transition out of her beloved oils, despite her doctor’s advice that the chemicals in oils have an adverse effect on her system. That effect is one of the reasons her 100^th show might actually be her last. Ultimately, it may depend on whether she willingly gives up her oil paints, which is her favored medium and the one that enables her to produce works that are often multi-layered and textured to become almost three dimensional in their effect.

Geraldine studied fine art in South Africa, UK, and Canada. But her first teacher was the grandmother who gave her that first paint brush that got her started and ensured she would never stop.

 

MISKA MOHAMMED SPENDID YOUNG SUDANESE PAINTER

            MISKA’S MAGICAL REALISM PAINTS RIVER NILE IN NEW LIGHT

By Margaretta wa Gacheru

When Circle Art Gallery held its first Khartoum Contemporary exhibition back in 2017, Miska Mohmmed was not just the only woman whose are was in the show. She was also the youngest artist among them. But she wasn’t too young to make a deep impression on Circle audiences who responded well to her River Nile-inspired art.

Miska’s paintings has been exhibited by Circle Art several times since then, but not only in Nairobi. Circle Art’s founder and director Danda Jamoljmek has taken her work all the way to Lagos and in October she will take it to London for another Art Fair there. Danda has also included the 26 year old painter in two of the last Art Auctions East Africa.

Currently, Miska is here in Nairobi to attend her first solo exhibition at Circle Art which will run at the gallery until October 8^th. Speaking to BD Life, she explains how growing up close to the Nile has had a profound impression on her art. One can easily see it in her luminous paintings which are suffused with luscious colors, hues of deep blues and shadowy blacks as well as grassy spring greens.

She paints like an oceanic alchemist, blending colors into a magical mix that conjure up ‘forgotten places” which emerge out of the depths of Miska’s vivid imagination.

Miska admits her connection with the Nile runs deep. “When I’m at home, I climb up to my third-floor studio where I can see the Nile from my window. It always inspires me,” she says.

Mainly painting semi-abstract landscapes and seascapes in acrylics on canvas, Miska is meticulous about first sketching out her ideas in watercolor works which are equally elegant and rich in a similar palette.

Describing herself as a landscape artist, Miska says her art is not about specific people or places. “My art is more about my feelings and the energy that I pick up from the places where I am painting,” says the artist who loves painting in the open air.

Those feelings are best expressed in river scenes where her waters are either swirling or free flowing, choppy or tranquil. She occasionally accentuates the beauty of her water worlds with lotus or daisies, rather reminiscent of Claude Monet’s Water Lilies.

Miska even paints an entire ‘lost city’ underwater with as many byways and highways as one can almost see in her exceptional ‘Crowded Town’. This work is exceptional for several reasons. For one, it’s her only cityscapes in the show. It’s also the only one where she changes her palette radically with streets painted fire engine red. The glaring reds seem to register the emotional cacophony that Miska hears in her head, but which inspired her all the same to paint this busy city that also engaged her attention.

A graduate with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2016 from the Sudan University’s College of Fine and Applied Arts, Miska says she was blessed with parents who encouraged her to paint from a very early age. “They are not artists themselves but they love art and encouraged me to be creative,” she says.

That kind of family support meant that Miska started early to cultivate her artistic talents such that today, her art is already earning her significant figures. For instance, on the opening day of her exhibition, “The Magic of Forgotten Places” several of her large paintings were sold on the spot. Among those that sold was Tranquility for USD4,200 and The Lost City for USD2,900. So Kenyan parents need to understand their children can be successful as artists, not just lawyer, accountants, and doctors, when they are encouraged and inspired to express themselves.

Miska says she only knows one other female artist from Sudan. She says Kamala Shug is still alive and painting, and she has inspired Miska to continue advancing with her art. Miska hopes she can also inspire other young women artists by her example.

 

 

COVID QUILT REVEALS SUFFERING OF LOCKEDOWN KENYANS

                    COVID QUILT REVEALS HARDSHIPS ENDURED DURING LOCKDOWN

BY Margaretta wa Gacheru

The COVID quilt is a work of art, It’s also the collective creation of more than 14 Kenyan women from self-help groups who, among other things, do embroidery as both an advocacy and an income-generating exercise.

In this case, the quilt is meant to send a message which is for Kenyans to be safe by getting vaccinated. At least that was the idea that the founder of The Advocacy Project, Ian Guest, had hoped the quilt would convey when he suggested the women embroiders create artistic images of the trials they have faced during the COVID pandemic.

“The quilt will circulate around schools, churches, community groups, wherever there’s discussion about the value of vaccinating people to protect them from the virus,” says Gillian Rebelo who is the liaison between Mr Guest who is based in Washington DC and the women based in informal settlements in both Kangemi and Kibera.

                        Gill Rebelo, Stella Makena and Karen Mbayaki with the COVID QUILT

“I wasn’t sure what Gill was asking us to do when we first met,” says Karen Mbayaki, leader of the Kangemi Advocacy Self Help Group. “She was offering to teach us skills in embroidery but many of us already knew how to embroider. But when she explained we would receive a stipend every time we met, that was an incentive for women to join in,” she adds.

Stella Makena leads a group of 11 women from Kibera who have also helped created the COVID quilt. “We have a lot of self-help projects, but this one has been special. We brainstormed ideas together before we created the images that we embroidered,” she says.

The COVID Quilt is not the first one that Kenyan women have produced in response to suggestions from the Advocacy Project, a non-profit group that works specifically with vulnerable communities in informal settlements all over the world.

“Ian [Guest] contacted me in 2019 since I was chairperson of the Quilt Group of Kenya at the time,” says Gill. “He told me a UNFPA conference was coming up soon in Nairobi and as his project works a lot with embroiderers and quilters, he wanted me to find women who could help create a quilt for the conference.” She adds.

Undaunted by the fact that she only had eight weeks till the conference, Gill set out to first find and train the women, then get their ideas about what would go onto the quilt, and finally produce it in time for the conference. Having taught quilting and embroidery for many years, Gill asked her Kenyan quilters to reach out on her behalf. That’s how she met Karen and Stella and got the groups brainstorming about problems that women face.

“Skills training was primarily done by Christine …, a professional quilter,” says Gill who marveled that the Women’s Quilt was completed in time, and is now on its way to be permanently hung in the United Nations in New York.

The women embroiderers continued to meet, with a small stipend from Advocacy. It was Guest who suggested they pursue their next big project in light of COVID-19 and the Kenyan public’s hesitancy to take the vaccine.

“We once again brainstormed on the problems Kenyan families have faced since the lockdown began,” says Stella who did all the outlining of ideas on fabric squares that the Kibera women embroidered in. Karen’s women also brainstormed with Edwin… outlining their ideas on fabrics they would embroider thereafter.

The result was the COVID Quilt containing 14 images depicting the genuine plight that Kenyans have suffered since COVID came to Kenya. The images portray everything from children taking their classes under a tree to homes being congested places where no one has work, no funds are coming in, and children are stuck inside with no books or internet.

The images also reflect the way public transport services have taken advantage of the lockdown. Their fares have gone up while the number of buses circulating has gone down. Then there are images of everything from a daughter mourning her dad, a wedding filled with all empty chairs, and an airplane leaving people stranded since all flights were cancelled. Then there’s the beggar who is bypassed by everyone who is nearly in the same situation, the cop pushing people around, and the healthcare worker trying to save lives.

In short the Quilt is a masterpiece portraying Kenyan people’s actual suffering during this pandemic which has yet to go away.

“The hope is the quilt will send the message to Kenyans that the vaccine can help to bring the pandemic to an end, so get vaccinated,” Gill adds.

 

 

 

WHY TITLE OBNOXIOUS OBVIOUSLY?

OBVIOUSLY OBNOXIOUS

By Margaretta wa Gacheru

The first sign that we might have trouble watching Igiza Arts Production of ‘Obnoxious Obvious’ at the Kenya Cultural Centre last weekend came at exactly 3pm, right when the show was scheduled to begin.

That is when we watched one of the set designers stick ‘presidential’ photos on the wall, as if that shouldn’t have been done at least an hour .earlier

After that, there was the mulling around of production people as some checked out the lighting and others did who knows what. We wondered why all of these last-minute details hadn’t been arranged in advance? Was this a sign that no one was in charge or just that the cast and crew kept the so-called ‘Kenya time’, meaning arriving at least half an hour late?

Either way, the show finally opened with the National Anthem after 3:40pm and the show that Wreiner Arnold Mandu scripted, directed, and produced finally took off. Mr. Mandu founded Igiza Arts, so we may have to hold him to account for his not running a tighter ship.

His story was a good one. It showed us several slices of Kenyan everyday life, starting with the most impoverished, shifting to an aspiring middle class, and revealing the dirty linen of the rich, powerful, and corrupt.

Kibali (Shammah Nyagaka) and his parents (Odhiambo Obonyo and Faith Andati) were living at the bottom rung of society. Their home was about to be taken since they had no means to pay off the loans they had borrowed. And their title deed had been the collateral Kibali’s father, Biledi (Odhiambo Obonyo) had used to secure those loans.

Poverty was the bane of their existence. But one ray of hope came when Kibali was offered a job as a bartender at an upmarket hotel. 

He went straight there, and immediately, his family’s lives were transformed. Biledi was even planning to take out yet another loan. But that was not to be since COVID had come to Kenya, and life would never be the same.

After several slow-going set changes, we finally met the Head of State, Okuzo (Darwin Wanjiru) who was the embodiment of corrupted power. He has a lovely wife, Oluyele (Milka Wangui) who on the one hand enjoys the privileges she has as First Lady, but on the other, finds his unethical plans to exploit the COVID pandemic for his personal gain abhorrent.

Oluyele challenges Okuzo, but rather than wrangle with her, he takes his daughter Erima (Lisa Odhiambo) with him to his public engagements to show her how to steal while looking like a saint.

The pivotal moment of the play comes when Okuzo responds to the COVID crisis. He is thrilled that COVID 19 has finally arrived in Kenya so he can inflate the numbers and on paper, look justified when asking for heaps of donor money for masks and other coverings that especially the hospital staff working with COVID patients need to stay safe from the corona virus.

Okuzo had been successful in training up his child to be just like him. Erima is greedy, selfish, and oblivious to the needs of her fellow Kenyans. She finds a billion shillings in her bank account, obviously from her father meant to be used to relieve Kenyans from the pain of catching COVID. But she could care less.

Erima’s boyfriend had been the hotel manager that was kind to Kibali when he started out on the job. But once she got her billion, and coincidentally, he lost his job due to the lockdown, she dumped him and went off with the Hotel’s manager.

The manager’s simultaneous loss of both his job and his girlfriend led to his doing something drastic. It was a stark statement, but the reality of Kenyans committing suicide is a sad reality.

Okuzo’s arbitrary style of extending the lockdown and the early curfew, also has consequences that reveal the high=handed cruelty of an autocratic ruler. It leads to Kibali’s getting picked up and roughed up by local cops for being out a few minutes after curfew. That’s the last we hear of him.

But Okuzo is not left unscathed. His darling daughter Erima suddenly gets ill and just as fast, falls over and is gone just like that.

Mandu’s story closely mirrors much of what we sadly know about Kenyan society today. He doesn’t shy away from truth-telling. But he must tighten up his production, making swifter set changes so the story flows.

 

 

KCAU'S SIMBA BAZENGA RADICALLY URBANIZED THE LION KING

 LION KING RADICALLY REVISED IN SPARKLING SHENG

By Margaretta wa Gacheru

On a scale of one to ten, the senior students from KCA University nearly scored a jackpot with their premiere performance of ‘Simba Bazenga: A Musical Play’ at Kenya National Theatre this past week.

They get high marks for everything from choreography, costuming, and sensitive acting to lighting, set design, and set changes which were swift and inconspicuous.

The only thing that dropped the bar a bit (but didn’t undercut my view that KCAU just produced the best musical theatre work of 2021, hands down) was that delicate mix of technology and live theatre.

“The software let us down,” says the show’s director, Ogutu Muraya who also lectures in KCAU’s Department of Arts, Film, Media, and Economic Studies. “It’s the reason we were a half hour late in starting,” he adds. Yet he didn’t need to explain the delay since school students were still streaming into KNT during those moments in any case.

It was Muraya’s choice to risk a glitch just so his students could a taste of current theatrical trends which definitely include mixing live performance with digital technology. But by creating theatrical backdrops with beautiful images projected from a computer, the outcome was bound to be dicey. It mostly worked well (apart from a couple of brief glitches) at the Friday matinee, creating moods most relevant to the tale that turned out to be a radical, indigenized adaptation of Disney’s The Lion King, workshopped and scripted by Silas Temba.

“We’d prefer to say the show was inspired by The Lion King, but you could see the many differences,” Muraya told Weekender when we met after the show. In fact, Simba Bazenga was a brilliant modification of the original tale, starting with replacing English with Sheng and Swahili.

The show is still about family, identity, and responsibility. It’s also about power, betrayal, jealousy, and justice. But the fact that it’s set in urban Nairobi, not on some idyllic African savannah, makes the whole story come alive with urban sights and sounds.

Musically, the show is again a mix of many of the Lion King classics like The Circle of Life. But the score was also revised and indigenized by Rodgers Ng’inja who picked up another classic, ‘Hakuna Matata’ only to transform it into a reggae romp. The song has different connotations now. It marks the moment when the young prince Simba, (played charmingly by Sandra Chadota) stops grieving and feeling guilty about his father’s death. He essentially turns his back on his destiny and identity, and takes a mindless, ‘don’t care’ attitude towards his life.

That’s exactly what his uncle Scar (Emmanuel Barasa) wanted him to do. Having been instrumental in his brother’s death, uncle then went on to convince Simba he was responsible for his father’s demise, and had better flee for his life, which he does.

That left the field open for Scar to claim he is now heir to the throne. Jealousy had enflamed his cruel scheme to dethrone his stately brother. It got him the title and time enough to bring devastation to the Pride Lands and mourning to people who felt the double loss of both father and son.

Simba would have been lost in the wilderness forever if it hadn’t been for Rafiki (Kulola Kitatu) the female shaman, who serves as a sort of narrator. She stumbles upon Simba (now played by Mikal Otieno), reminds him of his role and responsibility to his people. She compels him to come home and reclaim what is rightfully his.

The only problem is that Simba has spent years living in shame, trying to crowd out the feeling he was responsible for the death of his dad. He comes home, only to be reckoned a coward by his best friend Nala (Sharon Chelang’at) who rejects the ‘don’t care’ man that he’d become.

It is her strong rejection that finally wakes him up to regain his courage of conviction and join the struggle to retrieve the Pride Lands and his place at the legitimate leader of his people.

Simba Bazenga was so professionally performed that one can hardly believe it was a final students’ assignment in Muraya’s theatre arts class. But it’s all the better for illustrating the calibre of theatre that university students can create when they are tutored well.

Ogutu Muraya may be better known as an internationally acclaimed storyteller than a theatre arts teacher. KCAU is fortunate in having him on staff, and clearly his students are as well.

 

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KESHO KUTWA:; TOWARDS A NATIONAL ART GALLERY

‘                    KESHO KUTWA’ APPEALS FOR A NATIONAL ART GALLERY SOON

                                                                                         Peterson Kamwathi

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (published September 24, 2021)

When Tony Wainaina speaks to friends of Kenya Museum Society tomorrow afternoon , one of Kenya’s top financial consultants won’t be focused so much on finances as on the future of Kenyan culture. As Chairman of the National Museum’s board of governors, he will be talking about the National Art Gallery and the need for Kenya to finally establish one of our own.

“It’s been [more than] a fifty journey since the need for a National Art Gallery was raised, but still it hasn’t happened,” says the man who is currently spearheading a struggle with the government that began as early as 1966 when Kenya’s second vice president Joseph Murumbi proposed such an institution in Parliament.

“I’ll be speaking about the rationale for having a national art gallery comparable to the National Gallery in London and the Smithsonian in Washington, DC,” says Wainaina. He might have referred to ones in Zimbabwe, South Africa, and Nigeria as well.

                                                                                                  Peter Ngugi

One point he says the government has yet to understand is that Kenya’s creative economy is growing fast. And while it may not yet be equivalent to that of the US, India or even Nigeria, the revenues fthe arts industries in all those countries are exceeding many of the traditional revenue spinners today. Just look at Hollywood, Nollywood, and Bollywood, all of which are reaping millions from the arts.

“If Kenyan politicians understood the economic value of the arts, they might stop pushing cultural concerns to the bottom of their budgetary priorities,” he adds.

But a man like Murumbi was equally concerned about the development of Kenya’s cultural identity. A National Art Gallery would serve as a repository for the arts. It would also play a central role in conserving some of Kenya’s finest artists’ works which now reside overseas, everywhere from Russia, Italy, and the British Museum to multiple museums in US and Europe.

Dennis Muraguri

The five artists selected to be in the exhibition are five of Tony’s favorites. They include Peterson Kamwathi, Peter Ngugi, Dennis Muraguri, Beatrice Wanjiku, and Michael Wafula. All are busy professional artists, meaning they are working creatively on a fulltime basis and earning a good livelihood from their art in the process. In contrast to the stereotypic view that ‘all artists are impoverished’, and therefore discourage your child from becoming one, virtually all of them have been able to sell their work for many hundreds, if not a million shillings per piece of work that they produce.

All five are painters, yet Muraguri combines printmaking with painting. Meanwhile, Ngugi, Kamwathi, and Muraguri are also appreciated for their sculptures. So versatility is one of the qualities they all share. Nearly all of them have also been involved in mentoring up-and-coming artists. But ultimately, it’s the quality of the artwork and the statement it makes that has given the greatest appeal to their art.

Their work compliments a smaller show next door in the Creativity Gallery by John Kariuki and Jimmy Githeka. It also stands adjacent to another group exhibition, ‘Dream of a Renaissance’ which also supports the vision of a National Art Gallery.

                                                                                                 Beatrice Wanjiku

\Since the Sixties, the visual arts scene has grown by leaps and bounds, starting with Kenya’s first African-owned art gallery, Paa ya Paa in 1965. Other commercial galleries also have been active since the Sixties, including Gallery Watatu, Studio 68, and the New Stanley Art Gallery. Foreign cultural institutions have also played a role in promoting Kenyan visual culture, starting with Goethe Institute in early Sixties followed by the French, British, Italian, and American. Yet none of them could fulfill the role of a National Art Gallery.

According to artists like Etale Sukuro and Murumbi himself, the dream of a National Art Gallery nearly happened when the Kenya government bought the building that is now the National Archive in the late 70s. At the time, it was bought specifically to establish the national art gallery. But by mysterious means, the plan was waylaid at the last minute, and artists’ hopes were dashed yet again.

Today, the National Museum just opened a visual art exhibition entitled ‘Kesho Kutwa’ and co-curated by Wainaina with the Nairobi National Museum curator Lydia Galava. “We called the show ‘kutwa’ [day after tomorrow] because the artists, like everyone else, has had to cope with COVID and the challenges associated with it. So the changes we want to see won’t happen tomorrow. But we are hopeful for the day after,” he adds.

                                                                                          Dennis Muraguri

The five artists selected to be in the exhibition are five of Tony’s favorites. They include Peterson Kamwathi, Peter Ngugi, Dennis Muraguri, Beatrice Wanjiku, and Michael Wafula. All are busy professional artists, meaning they are working creatively on a fulltime basis and earning a good livelihood from their art in the process. In contrast to the stereotypic view that ‘all artists are impoverished’, and therefore discourage your child from becoming one, virtually all of them have been able to sell their work for many hundreds, if not a million shillings per piece of work that they produce.

All five are painters, yet Muraguri combines printmaking with painting. Meanwhile, Ngugi, Kamwathi, and Muraguri are also appreciated for their sculptures. So versatility is one of the qualities they all share. Nearly all of them have also been involved in mentoring up-and-coming artists. But ultimately, it’s the quality of the artwork and the statement it makes that has given the greatest appeal to their art.

Their work compliments a smaller show next door in the Creativity Gallery by John Kariuki and Jimmy Githeka. It also stands adjacent to another group exhibition, ‘Dream of a Renaissance’ which also supports the vision of a National Art Gallery.

 

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