Advertisement

How our artists show East Africa to the wider world

Friday May 18 2018
pic2

Untitled, by Martin Onyis. PHOTO | FRANK WHALLEY | NMG

By FRANK WHALLEY

Once again East African artists are flying the flag abroad, with exhibitions in London, Bayreuth, New York, Johannesburg, Rome and at the prestigious Dakar Biennale.

Opening this past week in London was Peterson Kamwathi who is exhibiting around 10 pieces in the latest part of his series looking at mass migration, called Vessels, Constellations & Sediments IV.

Running through next month, it is his second solo show in the English capital and includes several key works in which Kamwathi himself becomes the subject in a cluster of pastel, graphite and spray paint drawings that deal with the internal realignments caused by the realities of migration. A drawing from the same series, called Melilla 2, was shown recently at the One-Off in Rosslyn, Nairobi.

Curated and organised by Lavinia Calzi of ARTLabAfrica, Kamwathi’s latest show is being held at Golborne Road in trendy Notting Hill.

In Germany, the stellar Beatrice Wanjiku’s dark and disturbing triptych Let Slip the Reins is to be included in Feedback: Art, Africa and the Eighties which runs until the end of September at the Iwalewahaus in Bayreuth, home of all things Wagner.

Other Kenyans in the frame are Paul Onditi — included in the 13th Biennale of Contemporary African Art at Dakar, the capital of Senegal — who will also be showing alongside Martin Onyis in the exhibition African Mçtrópolis, an Imaginary City at the MAXXI Museum in Rome from June to November.

Advertisement

At Dakar with video installations are Kenya’s Jackie Karuti and, from Tanzania, Rehema Chachage both of whom show regularly at the Circle Art Gallery in Nairobi.

A glass installation by Uganda’s Stacey Gillian Abe, represented by the AfriArt Gallery, is at Dakar, while sculptures and photographs by this talented young artist (still only in her 20s) are exciting gallery-goers in New York and Johannesburg.

Advertisement