Photographs documenting the lives of the people of Mathare, known by NGOs as an informal settlement and by everyone else as a slum, was a recent attraction at Kenya’s national museum.

Now Kibera, often described as Africa’s biggest slum, is having its turn with an exhibition by members of the art group Maasai Mbili, which is based there.

Formed in 2001 by two signwriters, Otieno Kota, who has since gone on to great things from his base at Kuona Trust, and Otieno Gomba, the group today has eight active members plus a number of students and it presents a strong social focus that connects art with the community’s development.

It offers children’s art programmes, international artists’ exchanges, art for peace exhibitions and a range of art for public places.
It brightens up the place.

The group’s more formal exhibition, called Boom! Boom! Kibera, is of 17 paintings and will be at Le Rustique restaurant on General Mathenge Road, Nairobi, until April 10.

Members taking part are Gomba, Kevin Irungu (who signs himself either Kevo or Irosh), Ashif Malamba and Mbuthia Maina.

Curiously, in spite of the group’s name which means Two Maasais, none of the members is Maasai… just another of those little anomalies that makes life worthwhile.

The artists’ general attitude appears to be wildly and gloriously cynical.

As a group with its roots in sign writing it is not surprising that most of the paintings are a hair’s breadth away from the sort of art you find on kiosks (and which I happen to love for its freshness and vitality).

It is the sort of bold, expressive painting adorned with slogans and other lettering, that inspired the Haitian-American Jean-Michel Basquiat to develop the style now codified as Neo-Expressionism — paintings slashed with vivid colours and bearing an iconography of screaming skulls and graffiti that speaks of urban angst.

What is surprising about these paintings from the Maasai Mbili collective is their dismissive response to politicians.

They signify open contempt for those they regard as self-inflating bladders of hot air.

Perhaps these artists have heard, from within the comfort of their collapsing mud walls and with the stench of sewers outside their doors, too many promises, too many pledges of help that came to naught.

Typical of these pictures is Kibera Times by Irungu, a spoof newspaper page that is a skit on a rash promise of jobs for all.

Hotel Biwea (Sheng for Beware) by Ashif Malamba is equally tongue in cheek, offering a menu of “Somali Pirate Speshol @30/-” and advertising, “We serve dead husbands and kidnapped wives.”

I am not sure whether they are potential customers or two of the dishes.

Another by Ashif called Tax Free, is an illustrated statement simple and clear… “Smoke Free and Free Drink is Tax Free.”

Revival Ablaze Team by Irungu states boldly next to its three central figures, all of whom appear to have been blessed with haloes, “Politicans are bad people and Gospel rules.” You get the drift.

More straightforward is Ghetto Boy, also by Irungu, a painted tin lid with the handle doing double duty as the nose. Pure expressionism, it is rich, vibrant and would stop a bus.

Loud, colourful, polemics as much as paintings, this is an exhibition full of fun.

Four small paintings by one of the group’s founders, Mbuthia Maina, hang together on one wall.

They are collectively entitled Olumawe, a name which apparently is Dhuluo for Man Made of Stone but should be taken as a metaphor for a hard man, a tough guy who has struggled throughout his life and stands no nonsense.

It is the name given to one of Maina’s neighbours, a man who enjoys his drink and whom many people disregard, but in whom Maina sees courage and strength.

These four paintings are snapshots from his life, a tribute to a friend he admires.

Other aspects of Maina’s work can be seen at the Goethe Institut, where the curatorial group Connect 3 is presenting an installation by him until the end of this month.

Contained within three huts respectively of mud, wood and mabati (iron sheets), are examples of the techniques, styles and materials Maina has used to make his prints, paintings and sculptures.

If home is where the heart is, this literal recreation of three segments of the artist’s career allows us to walk through the houses of his memory and explore where his art is, too.

“It speaks of where I have been, what I have done and who I have been with over the past 10 years,” he told me. He names rock art as one of his sources of inspiration.

And should you want more, around 25 pictures by Maina are currently on show in Kibera, in an unnamed pub not 100 metres from the Maasai Mbili headquarters in Kianda Village, Ayany.

The people are friendly, the beer is cheap… what reason is there not to go?

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