A prophet honoured in his own land

At last! The visual arts are a valued contribution to Kenyan society — and that’s official.

Proof came this month with the welcome award of a Head of State Commendation for the Arts to Wanyu Brush, believed to be the first given to a painter.

With him were honoured five musicians during a ceremony presided over, not by the Head of State but by the Permanent Secretary for Culture, Dr Jacob ole Miaron.

The award to Brush might signify a new general awareness of the value of painting and sculpture, in which case hopefully it will be followed by grants, and support for the many artists who struggle in the shadows often for many years before recognition comes, if it comes at all.

One thinks too of such deserving groups as the GoDown arts centre in Nairobi’s Industrial Area, home to Kuruka Maisha (Jumping into Life), which helps to rehabilitate street children through the arts.

There is also the Kuona Trust arts centre across the city, which provides low cost studios and other back-up for artists — a library, for instance, and professional advice on marketing their work.

The Commendation, which signals new government interest in Kenya’s artists — or if not interest, at least awareness — was actually presented not to Wanyu Brush but to John Njenga Kamau, the artist’s name before he took up painting in 1969 under the patronage of the late Ruth Schaffner, who set up the Gallery Watatu.

Almost single-handedly, Schaffner raised the profile of painting in this country and through shrewd sponsorship of promising talent spawned a generation of professional artists. Brush was one of them and he in turn became one of the founders of the now internationally recognised Ngecha Artists Association of painters and sculptors based just outside the capital.

Others were Sane Wadu, Eunice Wairimu Wadu, Chain Muhandi, Sebastian Kiarie, King Dodge and Morris Foit. They nurtured a second generation of painters, like Shine Tani and Cartoon Joseph from nearby Banana Hill and Allan Githuka from Ngecha itself, who have become sought-after artists in their own right.

Aged 61, Brush now spurns the representation of any gallery and still operates from his small first floor studio in his home village.

You enter his compound through a vividly painted doorway opening on to a narrow path lined with animal skulls. His completed pictures are stacked against the studio walls while those in progress or still drying line a small gallery open on one side to the yard below.

His style is almost too well known to describe: each oil painting a maelstrom of energy with faces, bodies and animals writhing across the canvas in a riot of colour, their vigour enhanced by a thick impasto.

Most are large — at least the size of a family table — and his subjects match the violent, wristy attack of his paintbrush… the Nairobi bombing, post-election violence, the harm we do to each other.

His studio seat is a njung'wa, a antique Kikuyu stool with a deep and beautiful patina. For Brush is a man steeped in tradition and respect for his culture.

Asked, as one of the father figures of Kenyan art, for the advice he would give to young painters, he pauses, determined to get it right. Then states: “Persevere. You’ll face a lot of problems: Paints are expensive, canvas is expensive. Persevere.”