Little Art Gallery launches in Kisumu
The Little Art Gallery in Kisumu. PHOTO/MARGARETTA WA GACHERU
By MARGARETTA WA GACHERU
Posted Thursday, May 1 2014 at 17:41
Posted Thursday, May 1 2014 at 17:41
In Summary
- Ndwiga’s goal is to make Kenyan art accessible and understood. The new gallery is a step towards this.
William Ndwiga was not born an art lover, more a
business man. Over the year he has acquired and cultivated a taste. He
is now one of the biggest and considered the best Kenyan promoters of
contemporary African art.
He mostly learnt when working at the RaMoMa Museum
for two of the best art curators, as well as artists, Mary Collis and
One off Gallery CEO Carol Lees. Ramoma is set to reopen on Mfangano
Street in the Rahimtullah Library.
He also learned a great deal on how to apply his
business skills to the promotion and sales of contemporary African art
working with Africancolours.com boss Andrew Njoroge.
But it was his own initiative that led him to launch The Little Art Gallery in late 2010.
He had come to know most of the leading local
artists and understand the challenges they faced. He set up a ‘mobile
art gallery’ featuring a cross section of East African painters and
sculptors in December 2010.
Through networking and appealing to local patrons,
he set up shop over weekends in up-market estates like Runda and Rosyln
in the gardens of friends who he encouraged to invite friends to come
see the art and meet the artists.
His goal was ideally to enhance people’s
understanding of Kenyan art and broaden the support base of local
collectors, connoisseurs and hopefully even corporates.
Ndwiga’s strategy has worked quite well, so well
in fact, that he has finally established a permanent home for The Little
Art Gallery in Kisumu, in Mega-City, one of the most popular shopping
malls in the lake-side town.
Kisumu based artists
The official launch of The Little Art Gallery was
last weekend. The venue itself was one long spacious showcase filled
with well-hung paintings by Nairobi-based artists, such as Michael Soi,
Alex Mbevo, Dennis Muraguri, Yassir Ali and Adil Roufi as well as a
number of Kisumu artists such as Eric Ayoti, Edward Orato and Willis
Otieno.
Many of the Kisumu-based artists attended the
gallery opening, including several students and graduates of the
Mwangaza Art School, which was started in 1985 by a Dutch priest named
Father Hans Burgman, 80, and an American nun, Sister Janet Muellen.
Father Hans was at hand to see the opening of the gallery along with the
school’s principal Dan Ouma.
Local businessmen also came out to support Ndwiga
and the gallery including the owner of the popular Kiboko Bay Resort,
Nirmal Darbar, who actually hosted the Little Gallery’s first Kisumu
show and has since become one of the town’s leading patrons of Kenyan
art, showcasing works of regional artists such as Chilonga Haji, Patrick
Kinuthia and Yassir Ali at his picturesque lake-side resort.
Peace monument
Among the other local corporates who came to the opening was C.S. Hayer, the Chairman of the Sikh community of Kisumu.
Mr Hayer is the one whom, on behalf of his Sikh
temple’s centennial celebrations, had commissioned the lake-based
sculptor Luke Oshotto Ondula to create the Peace Monument that
right-wing religious fanatics claimed was associated with devil worship
which had resulted in a raucous mob destroying the monument.
Both the sculptor and his son Cleophas, also an artist, were present for the launch.
But before the monument, including the
semi-abstract sculpture, which is shaped like someone seated and bowing
in prayer, accompanied by two regal cement lions, are returned to the
roundabout just near Hayer’s Sikh temple, Ondula says he must first
complete his statue of the late Oginga Odinga.
“That way, I hope to help local people understand
the nature of monuments, which are meant to honor and commemorate a
specific person, like Odinga, or place, like the Sikh temple,” said the
man who actually created the sculpture of Tom Mboya in the heart of
Nairobi’s CBD, across the street from both the Hilton and the Ambassador
hotels.
Ndwiga says he will continue showcasing Kenyan and East African artists in and around Nairobi as the Little Art Gallery.
In so doing, he hopes to continue growing the
numbers of Kenyans who are gaining a deeper understanding and
appreciation of regional art.
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