FRAN’S FLAMINGOS GIVE US HOPE

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (written Nov 20th, 2022) Frances Simpson was a flutist and a pianist before she became a painter and flamingo advocate. Having been born and raised on the lake-shores of the Great Rift Valley, first in Nakuru and later in Naivasha, she’s especially concerned about the bird once seen as East Africa’s symbol of freedom, elegance, and delicate natural beauty. “It’s not only the elephant and rhino who are endangered species,” she told BDLife. “For thousands of years, the flamingos have inundated lakes in the Rift Valley. But I have seen their numbers diminish dramatically in recent times.” Noting that the bird had been the embodiment of resilience for centuries, she said they had survived and thrived under harsh circumstances, including the hard volcanic rocks surrounding the lakes, the salt and soda that made lake water undrinkable to humans, and even the hot springs where she had seen them walking in their unrelenting search for algae to eat from the springs. “The irony is that it’s humans who are disrupting nature by polluting the lakes with [industrial] effluents,” she said. “That’s why people are protesting the construction of another factory on the shores of Lake Natron [in Tanzania],” she added. Yet Frances isn’t a politician or a political activist. Her passion for flamingos and her protest on their behalf are expressed in her paintings, especially those she showed in her recent solo exhibition at One Off Gallery. Painting in mixed media, Frances combines acrylics with ink, charcoal, and pastels to create vivid Kenyan skies and earthy landscapes often filled with acacia trees of the kind one finds all around Naivasha. Yet in her recent exhibition, it was Frances’s flamingo paintings that enabled one to see the individuality of every bird and appreciate the delicate, shapely beauty of each one. Evolving into a ‘plein air’ painter in order to capture the full feeling of the flamingos’ movements on the various lakes, Frances also conveys the colors most reflective of their identities. That means she doesn’t just paint them in pinks. She also dresses their feathers in indigo and ochre, deep grey and white, all of which these so-called ‘lesser’ flamingos wear with delight. One reason the artist often paints outside on the lake shore is because it’s such an adrenaline-filled feeling when flocks of flamingos who are feeding on the lake suddenly decide to rise up and move out of their unassuming space. It’s a thrill to see them all rise in unison and fly together as one body, one being. Whatever the reason for them to move, it’s that mystery itself that makes the flamingo an object of myth and magic. The flamingo is often correlated with the phoenix which always rises from the ashes and gives one hope to endure and transcend one’s trials, knowing that if the phoenix and flamingo can withstand the harsh reality of everyday living, so can we human beings. Frances’s most intriguing work in the show was the one entitled ‘Survival in a Harsh Environment I’. There is a lot going on in this piece. The flamingos are in a corner, as if they are being squeezed out of their long-standing space. One can only vaguely see a house hinted in the background but definitely too close to terrain that had been previously reserved for the birds alone. Then on the ground, below them, one can see what looks like the natural volcanic rock and possibly even the suggestion of hot steam. But then one can see what explicitly looks like human footprints interjecting an annoying appearance of this trouble-maker, the man who has come to subdivide the plots and make humongous profits off the land previously reserved for mother nature’s loved ones, the high=flying flamingos. Fortunately, Frances also created a second version of the same-titled piece. It’s one in which the birds are resisting encroachment and fighting back. A small flock of five flamingo are literally up in arms. Their wings are upright as they are all on the verge of taking off and flying forward into the fray. Fortunately, we know flamingos cannot actually fight physically against the polluting power of humans. But they can give us hope in these times when it looks like the possibility of reversing the deadly effects of climate change ha passed. The flocks have diminished to where five can constitute a team but not a flock. Nonetheless, Frances makes clear that to fight for the flamingos is to fight for life itself. We have no other choice but to do that.