By
Margaretta wa Gacheru (Posted September 11, 2017)
Samuel Githui
has always been one of my favorite Kenyan painters. His panoramic portraits,
often framed as triptychs, reveal fascinating features of Kenyans’ everyday
lives.
Sadly some
of his most memorable paintings, like guys on bicycles carrying crates of bread
or milk, have been copied copiously by any number of local artists. Still I
admire Githui’s signature style which for me is easily distinguishable from his
imitators’ work.
So it’s
difficult to contain my feelings for most of the work in Githui’s current solo
show at Kuona Trust. Painting in abstraction is not a style I frankly care to
associate with him.
His works
have always had salience for me, even when he only painted donkeys sauntering
along a sandy Lamu beach.
But his
abstract paintings at Kuona leave me cold, so I had best not say more. Only
that I hope Githui will again be inspired by the likes of Kenyan people whose
everyday movements as interpreted by his brush is endlessly fascinating to me.
Meanwhile,
the art of David Thuku and Longinos Nagila are an excellent choice made by
Willem Kevenaar, the Dutch business consultant who’s just opened a new art
space that he’s named ‘The Attic.’
“It’s
actually an apartment, but that word doesn’t slide off your tongue as easily as
‘attic’,” says Willem whose upstairs art center is not meant to be grand but
already looks like a gem of a venue for artists prepared, like Thuku and Longinos,
to share a few choice pieces of their art.
These two
have much in common as they both work in multi-media using various techniques.
Thuku, who’s one of the founders of the Brush tu Art Collective, abandons
painting entirely in this exhibition. Instead, he works with paper-cuts,
sgraffito, silk screen and pen and ink.
Longinos
also works with paper-cuts as well as image transference with a bit of acrylic paint
added for maximum effect. Altogether, their art creates a delicate balance,
especially as both artists’ works are largely in black and white with color
used sparingly and often to accentuate a particular point.
Both employ a
fair share of symbolism to infuse meaning into their art; and both take an
experimental approach even as they each have burning concepts on their minds.
Having been
together at the Buruburu Institute of Fine Art through 2011 (but graduating in
2013), this is their first joint exhibition since then. It was Willem who
invited Longinos to open The Attic accompanied by an artist of his choice. That’s
how Thuku came in.
Both address
social issues in their art. Longinos explores the intersection of consumerism, immigration,
marketing and money in works like his installation featuring both a ‘painting’
entitled ‘Vu Compra’ and a related wire sculpture that the artist calls ‘Manta’.
The terms are slang that’s something like Sheng only it’s a pigeon language
Longinos encountered among African immigrants living in Europe and hawking fake
brand-name items, like Louis Vuitton bags. The authentic luxury bags are also
in his side of the show, only this time he’s commenting on the marketing method
that objectifies the models as a means of manipulating human desire to ‘buy buy
buy’ (as he writes by hand on his art).
And his series
on ‘Currency’ is also meant to expose the link between money and immigrants who
often risk their lives just to make it to Europe. Longinos has spent time overseas
where he has seen these interconnections first hand, including immigrants’ struggles
to stay alive.
Interestingly
enough, Thuku also explores issues related to risk, identity, work and
alienation, only from a slightly different angle. They are themes seen in both
of his untitled series, one drawn in nine frames, the other silk-screened in
ten. Each series explores the way a woman’s identity is gradually lost as she
moves, frame by frame towards picking up a parcel and becoming hired help in
the process.
Thuku then
transferred the same images (plus one) onto silk-screen, making them into
one-of-a-kind prints. The tenth one is of just half the woman, suggesting her
identity is almost lost as she’s now an anonymous worker.
Thuku’s
notion of risk is revealed for me in his ‘Empty Seats’ series, all of which
contain dice and checker boards, and each suggesting how chance (and the roll
of the dice) seems in control of where one’s positioned (or seated) in life.
Of course, I’m
reading into Thuku’s symbols my own interpretation. But then I gather both he
and Longinos employ their art to make critical social commentaries aimed at
eliciting further debate.
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