Three exhibitions in three separate gallery spaces opened last weekend at One Off. Each very different, but all having something to say about our life and times. They are James Karanja, James Mweu, and Xavier Verhoest.
It’s reminiscent
of what Carol Lees used to do as the co-owner (with Mary Collis) and curator of
RaMoMa (Rahmtulah Museum of Modern African Art) when it was still standing on Second
Avenue Parklands. For a time in the early 2000s she would curate seven separate
gallery spaces a once. Sadly Ramoma shut down in 2010, but Carol remained well
as she went back to her home base at One
Off which she had opened in 1994 and never closed.
Inside the
Loft, one will find James Karanja’s fascinating collection of prints called collagraphs.
He entitles his exhibition ‘Wormhole’ referring to a theoretical concept all
about bridging long distances separating spaces and times. He wraps so many concepts
together in just less than 30 prints, everything from the role of technology in
bridging gaps between generations to appraising the way communication tools have
transformed our everyday lives. “People used to write letters and share their
deeper thoughts, but now, we do everything on our phone,” Karanja tells BDLife.
He shared old advertisements to shop in elegant department stores, now rendered
obsolete since we do all our shopping online. He ends with a series of fancy screen
savers for our cell phones, our new best friends.
James’ Mweu
and Karanja have several things in common, apart from their first names. They
both favor printmaking and they’ve both been working for their respective
exhibitions at the Mandy Bonnell Print Studio which is also based at One Off.
Bonnell, though based in UK, is still considered a part of the One Off family. She
was running printmaking workshops at One Off since the 1990’s and donated a printer
to the gallery in 2022. ‘But it wasn’t installed until 2023,” Carol tells
BDLife, noting that initially Mandy’s print workshops took place at Yony Waite’s
Wildebeest Workshop in Lamu. (The
memorial service for Yony will take place March 5 from 4-8 at Circle Art
Gallery.)
Mweu’s exhibition
occupies one portion of the Stables and utilizes it well with woodcut prints
and the boards the artist carved and etched in to create his elegant line
prints of trees. Why trees? We ask. ‘Because I’m a hiker who hikes all over the
country and often through forests still covered in trees,” he says. Having made
a limited edition of his prints, and just six woodcut boards, his focus is
strictly on one of Kenya’s many endangered species, our forests and our trees.
Xavier Verhoest
has taken a brave step making a powerful statement in his paintings and
photographs that he prepared to display in “Our Memories Can’t Wait (For
Palestine)” .
“I am so
proud of Carol for bringing Xavier’s exhibition to One Off,” noted one Dutch
woman who felt compelled to speak out about the tragedy ongoing in the Middle
East, particularly in Palestine. “This exhibition is the first one to use the
visual arts to protest what’s happening to the Palestinian people,” she adds.
But I must correct her since the first one was staged a month ago at the Cheche
Gallery at the Kenya Cultural Centre by a group sympathetic to the plight of
the Palestinian people whose stories are rarely told in their most raw reality.
That show featured mainly political posters and cartoons and photographs from
all over the world, all bearing the same message, that a ceasefire needs to
happen now.
Xavier confesses
in touching remarks made on a framed introduction board, that he first began to
paint seriously while working for Doctors without Borders (MSF) in Jerusalem in
1999. He was deeply moved by that experience living amidst the trials, traumas,
and tragedies already inflicted on the Palestinians who were locked into small
strips of land, under Israel’s dominant neo-colonial control. The situation was
so dark emotionally that he had to do something to create his own concept of
beauty to contrast the blight that lay all around him.
Since his departure
from Gaza, Xavier has been haunted by his memories of that experience. So much
so that he had to create abstract paintings meant to capture colors, moods, and
memories that might transcend the painful reality which continues in Palestine.
Xavier has
had many exhibitions both in and outside Kenya. But for me, this one is his finest
and most soulful.
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