KENYA WOMEN TRIO OF PAINTERS AT KAREN MUSEUM

 WOMEN’S EXHIBITION UNDER KAREN BLIXEN’S AVOCADO TREE

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (published 18 February 2022)

Standing in the hot equatorial sun with their artworks shaded only by the lush green branches of an avocado tree are three women artists who came to exhibit their works at the Karen Blixen Museum.

“We’ve been exhibiting here every year (apart from the last two when COVID kept us at home) since 2011,” says Caroline Mbirua, one of the trio which includes Esther Makuhi and Nayia Sitonik.

Speaking to BDLife, what she also explains is that in previous years, the troika always exhibited on the veranda of the Museum, having maximum visibility. “Often visitors to the Museum would stop first at our exhibition and admire our art,” she adds.

But this year is different. A new rule came into effect just before the pandemic hit. It now restricts artists from displaying their work in the frontal walkways of the Danish writer’s memorial institution.

We were informed of the artists’ situation by a friend who was so affronted by the women’s treatment that he texted me and advised me to go see their sad circumstance myself.

All three women are award-winning Kenyan artists. All are former students of Kenya’s most renowned art teacher and mentor, Patrick Mukabi. And they all insist that their treatment isn’t the fault of the current Museum curator who was out of the office when I arrived.

“It was a tourist who complained that our art was blocking their view of the Museum. They wanted to take photographs,” says Esther. “After that, the new rule was introduced which we found after we’d arrived from Kisarian,” she adds.

Resigned to making the best of a bad situation, the women are definitely disappointed at the way they have been treated. Nonetheless, they have displayed their art as best they can. But the fact that the best shade is under the avocado tree has made the women set up their make-shift displays right next to a ‘Maasai Market’ collection of curio salesmen.

“It’s as if the museum is treating artists like ordinary street venders,” one friend of the trio observed.

The proximity is unfortunate since it might seem that their art is just another style of curio, which it is definitely not. But Makuhi admits she feels their works has been relegated to things of lesser value.

And if being treated like a curio dealer isn’t bad enough, the trio has been challenged by Mother Nature. “It gets windy in Karen, making our paintings fall off their easels and [make-shift] stands,” says Mbirua.

“Plus when it rains we have to rush to get all our art to shelter,” adds Sitonik.

Their plight is palpable, particularly as they have seen that visitors who come to the Museum rarely find their way around the giant avocado tree to look for fine art. “If they do come to the tree, they are normally looking for curios,” says Mbirua.

Fortunately, all three women have brought both framed and unframed paintings with them, making it easier to transport and protect them from the elements.

For instance, Esther has brought postcard-sized paintings by several of her best young students who she teaches for free at her Darubini Centre.

“Both my art centre and myself have won awards at the [annual] MASK art competition,” she says. Caroline has also won MASK prizes for her teaching of art. “In 2014 I also received the Presidential EBS honor of ‘Elder of the Burning Spear’,” she says. “The same year, Nation Media also awarded me with the ‘One Vibe One Kenya’ prize,” she adds.

Nayia may not have won as many awards as her peers. But she has been commissioned to create numerous graffiti murals in places like the Kenya Revenue Authority and East African Leather, the Afri-Can in Uganda, and several walls in Kigale, Rwanda.

All three women paint various subjects, mainly in figurative styles. Caroline, who studied four years at the Creative Arts Centre, frequently paints in oils using monochromic subjects. My favorite are her delicately-drawn acacia trees which sometimes have a dash of contrasting color.

Nayia’s most interesting works are architectural, focused on familiar Nairobi haunts like the Railway Museum where she studied for a while with Patrick Makabi at the Dust Depo Studio. Her portraits of peri-urban cityscapes are also interesting.

And Esther’s forte is painting peasant women whose manual labor, carrying bags of fresh produce literally on their backs, helps to feed the nation.

All the women have kept their artworks affordable. None is more than Sh120,000 and some are as little as Sh5,000.