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Painting, at the cutting edge

Friday April 04 2014
art

Paintings from Head by Henry Mzili Mujunga. Photo/Frank Whalley

Surely one of the functions of artists is to challenge the existing order… to offer fresh insights into old problems and, hopefully, show us a way forward.

It is not for everyone to be at the cutting edge, but most of the great artists were — it was one of the hallmarks of their greatness — and for those who fail to innovate lies the gaping chasm of obscurity.

It was with some interest therefore that I read the manifesto of Ugandan Henry Mzili Mujunga, who is currently exhibiting at the Afriart Gallery in Kamwokya, Kampala.

He declared he was keen to avoid obvious brush strokes in his paintings because “brush strokes are cliché and denote the old order.”

Mzili has a day job teaching art, but whether his students apply their paint with bits of rags, their fingertips or the ends of their noses I do not know.

It is always better to progress without chucking the baby out with the bathwater, so perhaps, with luck, Mzili gives them the chance to develop in all directions, including the use of such conservative, boring and unimaginative tools as sable and hogs hair brushes.

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How on earth did Van Gogh, Lucien Freud and the rest of those revisionists, known for their brushwork, ever do anything worthwhile with such an old fashioned approach?

Mzili is showing 20 paintings for the next three weeks. And the tricky bit for me, having sneered at his manifesto, is to admit that they are actually rather good.

In an exhibition called Head, with the paint poured, smeared, smudged, stenciled and scratched on a matrix of faux cubisme, his pictures appear fashionably edgy and possess a worrying presence. A tough vision that I think could live.

There seems to be a movement towards reimagining the human head. In Kenya, Beatrice Wanjiku and less traditionally the Sudanese El Tayeb are at the forefront.

Elsewhere, the new Shifteye gallery in Nairobi’s cosmopolitan Hurlingham suburb seems to be going through an identity crisis.

A recent exhibition, by the expatriate Kenyan Longinos Nagila, was closed at one point to make way for a brewery convention.

The curators, Iroko Arts, were not told in advance of the closure and some of the paintings were shifted to one side so the pep talks could continue.

The brewery was Heineken, which boasts that it refreshes the parts other beers cannot reach. Presumably because it has slammed the doors shut in their faces.

All this might not seem to matter much, but it does beg the question: Is Shifteye an art gallery or a commercial space, in the same way that the capital’s Village Market at Gigiri hires out its exhibition halls, sometimes showing art, sometimes crafts, sometimes the latest line in soft furnishings?

Shifteye is an aggressively clean, white space that makes clear its intentions on its website: “Exhibiting artists of all kinds, fashion events, musical performances, creative performance pieces, presentations and even cocktail parties….”

Presumably weddings, masonic do’s and bar mitzvahs would also be welcomed.

It really cannot be everything to everyone, can it? It is either a place for the arts or somewhere available to anyone in return for a fast buck.

This does matter because it raises a question mark over its credibility as a serious gallery. And that has not exactly been helped by its current exhibition of paintings by Tabitha wa Thuku, a former Watatu artist with a big reputation but little that I can see to support it.

Of the 25 of paintings on show, one — Blue Sky — was an attempt at a landscape with a beginner’s butterfly perspective; while many featured her well worn fat angels. In most of the figurative works the hands and feet were perfunctorily sketched in and usually reduced to symbols; always a giveaway.

The paintings fudged structure and solidity, relying on size to give authority and colour to provide vitality. Unfortunately, that size combined with wa Thuku’s predominately dark palette became simply oppressive.

Shifteye’s owners need to pull something out of the bag to burnish its good name. And quick.

Happily however, help is at hand for the artistically challenged.

The Kuona Trust, near State House in Nairobi, is doing excellent work under the direction of Sylvia Gichie in nurturing basic skills.

There are life drawing classes there every Saturday throughout this month from 10am-1pm.

They are being taught by Kuona artists and cover drawing in pencil, charcoal, ink and pastel plus — essentially — lessons in human anatomy. Life drawing is the bedrock of artists’ skills and they are unlikely to get far without it.

Yes, there is a small fee (about $12 a session) but trust me, if you are serious about art — practising, or understanding it — it is money well spent.

A photography workshop is also being held at the Kuona throughout this month. It will cover composition, lighting, working in black and white and with colour, plus subject and concept generation. 

Then it will be over. In a flash.

Frank Whalley runs Lenga Juu, a fine arts and media consultancy based in Nairobi.

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