The wooden carved panels stop me in my tracks. I’m struck by the sheer volume of the work. If I had thought that it would take a few minutes to take a look and leave, I was wrong. I spent an hour in that space that Expedito Kibbula created three decades ago, and arguably his best work so far.

The wooden panel is the centrepiece in the Desmond Tutu Conference Hall at the All Africa Conference of Churches (AACC) on Waiyaki Way in Westlands, Nairobi.

The wooden panel, ironically in a building owned by a church organisation, depicts African gods. I am not even sure the staff here are aware of the existence of this bas-relief wooden masterpiece, and if they do, why would anyone hang a cheap clock on it and even drive metal nails in it? I look at it as desecration of art.

I sought out Expedito (he is known and referred to in the world art by just his first name) and engaged him on this particular piece.

The African gods

“The panels at the AACC are about God. In Africa, we have so many gods: there’s the god of rain, the god of harvest, the god of birth, the god of good omens — we have god in every aspect of our lives. And so when I took up the project, I went back to my books before sketching.”

It’s an unusual carving devoid of the standard Christian cross or saints with halos.

“My mind picks up too many things and I’m swimming through an ocean of ideas and visions, and that’s what I put in my work at the AACC. The work expresses an African god in his many facets,” explained Expedito.

“The work conceals and reveals. Africa has a very strong imagery. But the onslaught of churches and Islam in East Africa destroyed our sense of belonging and our ancestors sold us flat to the church – both our identity and culture. When the priests came, our ancestors threw out their ‘things’ in exchange for a mirror. The white man called our art tribal art.

“We can arrest this situation before Africa is erased in both its identity and culture,” he said.

Expedito is currently living on the edge. I last met him seven years. I’m shocked at his appearance. Thin and obviously cold, he is living in a house that is leaking from the roof, with water seeping in through the floor.

He is one of the continent’s greatest artists. Despite his predicament, Expedito’s look on life is philosophical. I spend a few hours with him discussing the creativity of the arts and human spirit.

African Expressionism

A multi-talented artist and sculptor whose works have been exhibited around the world, Expedito’s first signature pieces of wood panel carving were made in the late 1970s when he was commissioned to work on the Bambara Lounge of the Nairobi Serena Hotel.

The brief was to create something similar to the granary doors of the Yoruba in West Africa. “I thought to myself ‘I’m not going to copy that but base my work on East African folklore, which as children we learnt from our grandparents through fireside stories told at night, of a world that was filled with nature, gods and mystical figures.

“The bug caught me from there and what you see in the Bambara Lounge is African oral literature as never shown before in three-dimensional carvings.” Every one of the panels in the lounge is based on a folk story that Expedito can recall.

Expedito explained that in the same vein, Constantine Brancusis — one of Europe’s most famous 20th century artist’s — made sculptures were also influenced by the folklore of his village.

Expedito said he invested his earnings from earlier works in setting up an artists workshop in Uganda after being paid for his work for the Kampala Serena Hotel and even had some savings. Unfortunately, the “artists” at the workshop he set up took off with his tools and some weren’t disciplined enough.

He also said he considers his work too complex for most people to understand and appreciate.

He nevertheless works continuously in private homes. He recently did some work for a homeowner in the high-end surbub of Karen in Nairobi. The problem, he said, is that some clients don’t pay (even politicians) or get frustrated with his pace of work or don’t have the sensibility to appreciate his work and take him for a mere wood carver.  

The best compliment comes from his apprentice, who is working with him when I visit. He says, “Before I was just carvings wooden animals (in Ukambani) in the same shapes I learnt from other carvers. Now I try different techniques that I have learned from Expedito and it’s exciting.”

Most of Expedito’s work is in Kenya, but he is proud of the Kampala Serena work.

New work

Currently, Expedito is working on piece called “Birds” with Mutua Kamuya, his apprentice for the past 10 years, at the house-cum-studio that he shares with his equally artistic son Michelangelo.

The tiny outdoor studio is filled with pieces of timber, paints and tools. “I brought these panels with me from Uganda – they were used as partitioning boards in colonial offices,” he said.

“It’s 10 years since I started working on this piece. It’s a simultaneous thing. I’ve been watching birds since I was a child. My work is how the brain picks, processes and gives shape. That’s our creative world. And sometimes it can lock you in. And you can get afraid. And sometimes it’s liberating.”

Looking at the panels, it is as Expedito had earlier explained – it’s all about concealing and revealing as the eye travels, finding birds, beaks and feathers — an intricate carving of fluid emotions and movements.

“It’s not for sale,” he said when I inquire, “because there’s not a buyer with the money or the sensibilities to buy it. I cannot sell it for little money just for the sake of making a sale because it cannot help me to live another 100 years. I’ve starved enough.”

African impressionist

A product of Makerere University, Expedito left Uganda in 1977 during Idi Amin’s regime. “My sense of history is of how we began, how we live. My brain goes on merging the impressions, the primitive art to the modern art. It’s unstoppable.”

It is perhaps that what gives his wood panels, the depth of the emotion as they conceal and reveal at the same time.

Going back to his piece standing in virtual oblivion at the AACC, Expedito is reflective. “I want to uplift the standards of African art and to see it grow in self-expression, so when we talk, we talk with confidence and have informed debates. It has to be informative. Our people need to start searching and have a vibrant thinking pace to rejuvenate the art world. African art is not lost art, it is lasting art. It is what influenced the European artists like Picasso.
“We must give this world a strong expression and to be ready to defend our works.”

Criticism

However, Expedito’s work came in for heavy criticism in a recent review in this newspaper by art critic Frank Whalley as being too jumbled up — in the critic’s words as “humpty-dumpty.”

READ: Humpty Dumpty has a great fall

Instead of being defensive, Expedito rather reasoned: “My work is an expression of my life. I have seen so much. What this man sees as a lot, is actually less.

“I can compare it to a woman who gives birth to a child naturally. She goes through different emotions from pain to joy. Now compare this range of emotions to a woman who chooses to go for a painless delivery. That’s the difference between me and that art critic.”