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GALLERIES: Xi's a jolly good fellow, and Soi say all of us

Friday August 24 2018
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Michael Soi’s China Loves Africa No 75. PHOTO | FRANK WHALLEY | NMG

By FRANK WHALLEY

One of the virtues of Michael Soi’s paintings is that no matter your mood they can make you laugh out loud.

For me a smile turned to laughter when I saw his paintings of Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party and president of the People's Republic of China, possibly for life.

I have never seen Xi in the flesh but in these paintings he is instantly recognisable, looking even more like his avuncular self than he does on the telly.

Cuddly, lovable but also somewhat sphinxlike, he would be, I should think, a dangerous man to cross.

The reaction to his being compared to Winnie the Pooh rather supports this suggestion, (I was going to write “bears this out,” so help me) with Chinese censors banning all mention of the portly Pooh in their state media.

Mr Xi’s reaction to being caricatured by Soi is not yet known, if it ever will be. I would like to think that he too has a sense of humour, but the nervous response of his expat countrymen and women can give us a clue, as we shall see.

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Either way the job of a satirist is not to flatter nor to appease but to point out a few home truths pithily and with wit.

And in this Soi is superb.

He is at his best when on the attack, brush like a rapier rather than a bludgeon, and in his series 'China Loves Africa' we can see him at his best.

Soi has already completed some 78 paintings in this series (he has threatened to stop when he reaches 80) and some of his latest squibs are on show at the Circle Art Gallery in Lavington, Nairobi.

Not the finest draughtsman among East African artists (although he can be both economical and accurate, as in his drawings of President Xi) and among the least painterly (his is a spare, graphic style well suited to his purpose), nevertheless he has become an international rock star among the region’s artists.

It is not his painting that has brought him that status, nor his slickly marketed tote bags, purses and other bits and bobs decorated with the Afro-styed women that are his stock in trade.

It is his wit.

He gets to the nub of his subject with a few deft strokes and mostly pastel shades — perfect foils for sub-Saharan skin tones — whether it is the sexual exploitation of African women (and a hint that the women themselves may be the exploiters), the plight of homosexuals, attacks on corruption and devious politicians, or as here, the extraordinary fondness China has developed for Africa.

This has nothing to do, you understand, with grasping its natural resources — women, ivory, minerals; you name it — nor soft loans that will last a lifetime and lucrative infrastructure projects but a genuine warm-hearted desire to help those it sees in need of friendship, tenderness and care.

You can see it here, in this exhibition… a Christ-like President Xi in China Loves Africa No 75, arms extended above a huddle of grateful Africans; and in an untitled painting in which Mr Xi is shown in mirror image as a playing card — the King of Hearts. Then he is with us again, sucking chang'aa style at seven African brews, drinking deeply of the continent he loves.

The paintings are big, up to 122cm by 245cm, which makes it hard to imagine them in a domestic setting. It is possible the Chinese embassy with its many huge walls will not be among potential buyers but the full colour catalogue contains most of the paintings plus a couple of others so you can always take Soi home.

The 12 paintings include one of a Chinese man carting off an African girl kicking her legs in a wheelbarrow, another shows a welcoming panda, yet others depict the Chinese flag with Africa as an added emblem, African women carrying Chinese looking children, lecherous Chinese men easing their hands towards African breasts and in one multi-media piece a Chinese man holding the flags of Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya.

But at the end of the day it is Mr Xi who takes the eye.

It was by chance that while I was wandering around this exhibition four young women from mainland China came a-calling.

They chatted about how art had become big business in China, how the dissident artist Ai Wei Wei was celebrated by a few but attracted little sympathy among the many in his home country… and then with much giggling they lined up to be photographed in front of the paintings of Mr Xi.

They asked politely that any photos we might take of this should not be posted in the press, on FB nor any other social media.

For after all, in China, freedom is a privilege and not yet a right — and laughter is sometimes a private thing, to be shared only with discretion.

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