KAMAL SHAH: INCOMPARABLE ARTIST WHO BRIDGES THREE CONTINENTS

“I’m beginning to see …how naturally and inevitably I have become an artist.”

                                                            Kamal Shah, October 1999

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted August23 2021)

Best known for being a painter, printmaker, textile designer, and award-winning mixed media (including digital) artist, Kamal Shah made that modest observation more than 20 years ago in Mumbai during the opening of his first solo exhibition entitled ‘Roots and Wings’ at the acclaimed Jehangira Gallery.

He would go on in subsequent years to confirm that humble estimation, not only by exhibiting in leading galleries and museums in India, UK and Denmark, as well as Spain, Germany, France and of course, Kenya.

He’d also win awards like the first prize [for mixed media] in 2006 at Kenya’s first juried Contemporary Kenyan Art Exhibition, organized by Kenya’s Ministry of Culture together with the Goethe Institute and Alliance Francaise. He’d even create commissioned artworks for clients including Commercial Bank of Africa, Kenya Airways, and others based in Dubai

But at birth, the so-called inevitability of Kamal becoming an artist was by no means apparent. The first-born son of a wholesale trader and a housewife was more likely to follow in his father’s footsteps and go into business or medicine or law like most respectful sons did, if they had the chance.

The chance that Kamal was given was education and the opportunity to attend a new kind of school in Kenya, one that stressed diversity and the integration of all kinds of Kenyans into one multicultural system that had a vision for Kenya’s bright new independent future. Hospital Hill had been created by an African, Tom Mboya, Asian, John Karmali, and European, Sir Derek Erskine to bridge the cultural gaps in the community, and in the process break down outmoded cultural practices like tribalism, racism and xenophobia.

In all those regards, HHS worked well for Kamal. “I consider myself a citizen of the world,” says the man who’s been bridging three continents for a good part of his life, first as a student, then as a globe-trotting nomad, and finally, as the quietly self-assured artist with intimate ties to Africa, India, and Europe.

Kamal sometimes describes himself as ‘self-taught’ artist since he never attended an Art College. Instead, he studied English Literature, History of Art, and Textile Design at the University of Leeds. In fact, he studied art both at Nairobi School (former the Prince of Wales) and at Hospital Hill.

But even before HHS, Kamal was raised in a household filled with women, two of whom were aunts taking classes to become teachers, As a seven year old, he delighted whenever they brought home art projects because he’d be shown how to do everything from painting and sculpting to knitting, and weaving. He’d play with paints, clay, wood, pencils and paper, all of which made an indelible impression on the little boy who fell in love with fine art.

“I think I’ve always wanted to be an artist,” he told Awaaz recently as we sat in his fifth floor flat in Parklands.

In fact, there were many other influences that shaped Kamal’s creative spirit. One was growing up in a house filled with music, especially classical Indian music which his father adored.

Another was the Orient Art Circle. “They used to bring over Indian artists to perform at the National Theatre. My father would often invite them to our home where they would perform right there in our living room,” Kamal recalls.

And in secondary school, he used to take private art classes with the English artist Keith Harrington, producing paintings that he occasionally sold at City Market through the help of his father’s friend, George Nthenge and Nthenge’s shop manager, Ancent Soi who was also ‘exhibiting’ and selling his art at Stall #1.

But despite all those early indicators that Kamal was destined to be an artist, (not a shopkeeper), he had to struggle to protect that artistic spark in his heart. Upon return from university, he was called to help manage the new family business. Rowland Ward was a novelty shop set in the heart of Nairobi’s CBD. Kamal conceded for a time, even turning the specialty shop into a part-time art gallery. But the family did him a favor when they decided to shut the shop down and leave him to get more involved in the local arts scene which he did.

Shortly after leaving RW, Kamal decided to start up his own Africana-styled specialty shop with his business partner, Esther Ndisi in 1982. As artistic director at Kichaka, he would gradually get closer to his goal of making his passion for art his first priority. That wouldn’t happen until he closed Kichaka in 1991.

It was tough shutting down two businesses in a decade; but it turned out to be a blessing in disguise since Kamal was now able to embark on what would become his most productive golden years of his artistic life. It was a time when he finally admitted to himself that he had always wanted to be an artist. And now was the time to do it.

Coincidentally, the Nineties was the decade that Kamal began spending time in India. His first trip there was as a teen on a tour with his family who, being third generation Kenyans, had few family ties to the sub-continent. But Kamal went back after university and found the art scene in Goa especially vibrant and cosmopolitan. “It was also quite reasonable living so I would go and stay two or three months at a time,” he recalls.

Kamal was even able to set up a temporary studio wherever he stayed. There he would paint all day, and attend art shows at night.

“Eventually, I started having exhibitions at several galleries in Goa. I even applied to exhibit in Mumbai’s top tier art gallery, which is the one where I exhibited “Roots and Wings,” he says.

Interspersed with those trips and shows on the sub-continent, Kamal came home regularly to take part in a range of solo and group exhibitions in Nairobi, either at Alliance Francaise, the National Museum and Gallery Watatu or UNEP. He also had major exhibitions in Denmark, UK, and India.

Slipping into the 21^st century saw Kamal’s artistic energies only ramp up as his art became the bridge uniting East and West and centered in Kenya. He continued exhibiting everywhere from London, Paris, and Arhus in Denmark to RaMoMa in Nairobi, The Old Bishops Palace in Goa and Diani Beach at the Kenya Coast.

The stream of exhibitions has slowed down significantly since the arrival of COVID-19 and the ensuing lock-downs.  But Kamal has managed to accommodate the shift to online artistry. He’s temporarily discarded his oils and acrylic paints even as he picks up his IPad Pro and Apple pencil which now constitute his digitalized art materials.

“I try to keep up with this digital stuff as best I can,” says Kamal as he doodles while he talks. He also illustrates how easily one can create digital art if they have the heart and mind for it.

Currently creating a series of digital artworks, Kamal is holding off before showing them around.

“Right now, no one is sure how to value works of digital art,” he says. But he is prepared to be patient, to wait and see. Otherwise, he spends large chunks of his day just experimenting with the various programs in color, line, brush, texture, design, and perspective that are included on his iPad. So in a sense Kamal has come full circle.

“I am an experiment,” he once told Catherine Ngugi whose story on ‘Kenyan Artists Narratives’ appeared in the second edition of Kwani!

As the only one of his siblings who went to Hospital Hill (the rest went through the Jain/Oshwal system of education), Kamal was his family’s globalized experiment. He has always seen his education as the key that opened his mind to creating art that has ranged from the abstract to the figurative and onto a mix of fantasy, mythology, and esoteric mysticism.

“I like leaving a little that’s enigmatic in my art,” says Kamal with a twinkle in his eye. He clearly enjoys the idea of his art being slightly elusive, esoteric.

Otherwise, Kamal explains there is nothing terribly complicated about who he is. He is an artist and that is who he is.