One of the highlights of the rather disappointing competition show at the Kenya National Museum recently was the entry of Jessica Atieno — two figure drawings that spoke eloquently of close observation and a practised fluency of line.

They did not make the final cut — it was that sort of contest — but they left at least this visitor wanting more.

And more we have duly got.

Aged 23, Atieno is currently holding her first solo show of some 10 mixed media paintings and drawings, plus a wall of sculptures described modestly as a “collaborative effort.”

It is of 12 headless female figures each within a cage. By “collaborative” Atieno means she had help with the technical bits; the mouldings and overall construction. Otherwise the installation — the idea and the direction — was hers.

So the artist did not actually make the figures herself.

An uncharitable person could think that the figures might be expected to be her preserve. But a charitable chap like myself would say that this is simply a refreshing return to the studio system that sees the artist farm out the boring mechanical bits to assistants.

Henry Moore did it, as did Barbara Hepworth and for all anyone knows Michelangelo may have had a bit of help with the chisels and the smoothing down too.

Had Atieno used dolls or miniature artists’ models instead of these mouldings, would we complain? Found objects are valid and have history.

Come on; first ever solo show. Lots to do. Let’s accept this for what it is — a neat idea expressed with considerable assurance.

In this work the figures, although not anatomically accurate, deal with posture rather than proportion.

For these are women caged by their stereotypes, some with their arms outstretched imploring release, others slumped passively, perhaps defeated by the burden of expectations.

Yet others push at the edges of their cages, determined to increase their space; the bars representing society’s restrictions on their ability to articulate their own identities.

Atieno seems to have no such trouble. The theme of this exhibition as well as the title, Full Frontal, with the sub-title The paradox of the female’s place, form and perception, walks that dizzying path between being female and being a woman. You would need a feminist to explain it properly, but I think it has to do with female being a gender, woman being a state of mind, or a realised existence.

As I wandered around the show, at the Kuona Trust, off Likoni Road, Nairobi, where Atieno has her studio, I did wonder if artists tended too much to force a theme onto their work instead of letting it speak for itself.

It is as though they feel they really must be that dreaded word, “relevant”, and reach their viewers through some explicit storyline, presuming perhaps that most of us are too thick to work out anything for ourselves.

If an artist uses a particular symbol to represent a belief or to project an idea then certainly it helps to know it… Peterson Kamwathi and his cattle that stand for the State, for instance, or Kota Otieno and his animals — totemic of the victims of terrorism.

But a drawing that lines up a row of seven naked women, full frontal as advertised, each with a different body shape and size, really does make a point about stereotyping and the casual beauty of the atypical without having to ram it home with an artist’s statement.

And that is particularly true in the case of Atieno who can produce, at her best, a seductive weight of line that both fulfils and enchants.

We do not need to be told that fat women can be beautiful, when the drawing of one in this exhibition, called Beauty Standards in case you miss the point, is so economically stated in line and tone. In it the figure is placed on newspaper cuttings, bringing to mind the continuous thread of past, current and future events. Like the sculptures, it too is headless. The accent is on the body beautiful.

That can be seen too in Virginity, a reclining nude viewed from the back. Again, headless. Nice bum.

A collage called Career Woman brilliantly realises the tautness of the model’s stomach muscles as she pulls her blouse over her head. The nature of her career is unstated.

So, Atieno offers us an exhibition — her first — that can be enjoyed on several levels; for her drawing skills, as a celebration of diversity, as a welcome addition to the regional canon, and as a polemic.

Feminists rejoice! You have a new champion-ess!

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