FICTIONS TELL VISUAL TALES IN ALL SIZES AND STYLES

 

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (Published 27 May 2022)

Don Hanah has become a first-class curator. Dipping into the store room at Circle Art Gallery where he works as Gallery Manager, he pulled out a wonderful variety of regional artists whose newest works he’d thought of including in a group exhibition, that is, if they were interested.

Naturally, all eleven said yes. So, what is now being shown at Circle Art (through May 31^th) is a diverse collection of paintings, drawings, monoprints, and wall (and ceiling) hangings. They’re mainly by Kenyan artists, but also ones from Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, and Uganda. They include Gor Soudan, Jonathan Fraser, Maliza Kiasuwa, Tiemar Tegene, Beatrice Wanjiku, Geoffrey Mukasa, Sujay Shah, Nahim Teklehiamanot, Wanyu Brush, Salah Elmur and Tahir Karmali.

 The show didn’t happen overnight. “We had to contact the artists and ask if they could send us several of their latest works,” Hanah told BDLife shortly after the show opened May 11^th.

Soon thereafter, the artworks started streaming in, coming from Naivasha, Siaya, Banana Hill, and Ngong as well as Addis Ababa, Cairo, and New York.

It took time, but the outcome is fascinating. The show, entitled ‘Fictions’, is artistically engaging, up-beat, eclectic and yet, coherent and intriguing to behold.

“It’s titled Fictions because it’s like the literary art form that tells stories. Only now, it’s paintings doing the storytelling,” Hanah said.

Unfortunately, not all the artists are around to give the backstories of their work. Like the Eritrean Tiemar Tegene who’s based in Addis. His painting, entitled ‘’Muddy Waters’ features a river filled with floating blue-black skulls. The river could be anywhere in Africa where we’ve seen war crimes.

At the same time, parts of ‘Fictions’ are simply fun, like the paintings of Sujay Shah. Both his Bathtub piece and ‘Still Life…Denial’ brighten up the walls on which they are hung. And as for ‘Still life..’, it amplifies the joy of color and a surreal-style of fun in an entire room. Hanah had chosen to hang several black and white works to the left and right of Sujay’s. His painting colorfully contrasts the drawings by Gor and Karmali, and Malisa’s wall-hangings which are also mainly black and white but equally graced with hints of color. None of these distract from the room’s main attraction, namely Sujah’s yellow and pink zebra skin on which sit a yellow table and red birdcage. There are other odds and ends painted on the canvas. But on the whole, his surrealist style seems to be a parody of the classical concept of the Still Life.

Other upbeat arrangements by Hanah include his juxtapositions, like placing Wanyu Brush’s two pieces next to one by Jonathan Fraser, Tiemar Tegene’s colored monoprints portraits complimenting Salah Elmur’s contrasting perspective on portraiture. Then there’s the dark (both visually and psychologically) piece by Beatrice Wanjiku which feels uplifted by the ceiling-hanging of Malisa’s green and yellow giant paper beads which hang just next to Bea’s work.

The only works in the show that are not new are by Wanyu Brush. These are two of the finest by one of Kenya’s early visual artists. The two came to the gallery through a collaborative arrangement between Banana Hill Gallery and Circle Art. They are the first two small gems that meet your gaze as you enter the gallery, contrasting well with one of Jonathan Fraser’s newest works. As he is one of the younger artists in the show and Wanyu the oldest, what’s intriguing is they both use a broad range of colors in their art. Fraser’s works are filled with mixed media, including charcoal, pastels, spray paint, and acrylics. His style is experimental, one that’s evolving and in abstract and exciting ways. One other of his pieces has an intuitive connection to its neighbor, the shining black skulls by Tegene.

Among other Kenyan artists, Bea, Maliza, Gor, and Sujay stand out as stunners, offering clearcut views of the wide range of styles developing among Kenyans: an emphasis of the organic in drawings by both Gor and Karmali (who is now based in New York) as well as by Maliza whose wall hangings are elegant tapestries of natural fibers stitched together by the Naivasha-based woman.

One of only three women in the show, Addis- based Tiemar is among the younger generation of artists being shown by Circle Art. The other is Beatrice who is among the earliest Kenyan women to emerge on the scene.

Finally, the other elder artist in show is the wise and wonderful Elmur Salah.

But who is the most entertaining artist, for me, is surrealist Sujay Shah.