Monday, April 28, 2014

Book launch promotes Kenyan authors

By MARGARETTA WA GACHERU

Posted Thursday, April 24 2014 at 17:51

(l-r) Jason Kap Kipwok with Longhorn MD Musyoki Muli and Kinyanjui Kombani. pix by Margaretta wa Gacheru

Book sales were brisk on Tuesday night at Alliance Française during the launch of two Kenyan novels from Longhorn Publishers.

Two of Kenya’s writers Kinyanjui Kombani and Jason Kap Kirwok were at hand to sign their books after the launch at the Wangari Maathai.

Kombani’s 188 pages Den of Iniquities and Kap Kirwok’s 174 pages The Heart is a Reluctant Nomad practically were on demand as fans of the long-time friends and fellow authors sought to get their hands on the authors’ newest works.

Den of Iniquities is set in the slums of Nairobi where crime is rampant and poverty plagues citizens. In contrast, The Heart is a Reluctant Nomad takes Kipwok’s main character from his rural village on the slopes of Mount Te-riet to a global village in the United States and back again.

Nonetheless, both works reveal the authors’ intimate knowledge of local life and the everyday experience of ordinary Kenyans. Both men are storytellers with a knack for detailed description and dialogue.

Moderately priced at Sh400 and Sh350 respectively, the books reflect Longhorn’s policy of keeping prices within an affordable price range.

Pro-active marketing of local books has contributed to enhanced sales.

The most recent example of effective book marketing was a book sale event, the Authors Buffet, held at Sarit Centre, late last year, where no less than 35 published Kenyan writers spent their Saturday interacting with readers, and major sales.

The Authors Buffet was so successful that it evolved into a 12 week creative writing course called the Creative Academy at Daystar University.

Among the special guests at the book launch this week was the health cabinet secretary, James Macharia and Longhorn’s managing director Musyoki Muli, both of whom donated Sh100,000, each, to the authors’ Book Harvest program aimed at filling empty book shelves in Kipwok’s rural secondary school.

Also present was the high court judge Isaac Lenaola and senior staff from Standard Chartered Bank where Kombani is a banker by day, an author by night.

Entertainment at the launch was provided by a musical theatre group called The Willing Nomads.

LIONEL RICHIE GARANGE AT KUONA TRUST

From matatu artist to a mask sculptor

Garang with Mama Africa mask. PHOTO/MARGARETTA WA GACHERU

By MARGARETTA WA GACHERU

Posted Thursday, April 24 2014 at 17:35

In Summary

Self-taught artist has been mentored by some of the best in the industry.

L.R. Garang’s mother loved Lionel Richie, the former lead singer of The Commodores, that she named her first born song after him - Lionel Richie Garang.

He did not rise to follow in the steps of the man he was named after. Today L.R is making a mark on the local art scene with his three-dimensional mask.

He is currently based at the Kuona Trust-where his first one man show, dubbed The Journey of the Mask, is on display. This is not his first exhibition in Kenya.

He’s been in group shows at the National Museum, ISK and Village Market as well as at the Tafaria Castle, Nyahururu, where he did an art residency with Rose Mukabi and painted murals in local dispensaries.

He’s also assisted sculptors Kevin Oduor and Meshack Oino in public art projects such as the one at the Syokimau Railway station.

The self-taught artist was involved in another form of public art before he met Kevin and Meshack after he completed his secondary education at Muslim Boys. Matatu art. It had captured his imagination since childhood when his family lived right next to a matatu station.

“It was the first art form I’d seen and I used to draw images while I was still in the school of design. I dreamed I would one day paint on actual matatus,” said Garang.

He had a portfolio of matatu drawings which came in handy when he applied for his first job with well-known matatu artist Mohe.

“I had seen Mohe on TV where he was being interviewed and he said he was open to having anyone come and learn to do matatu art with him, so I decided to follow up on his offer,” he said.

Garang went looking for Mohe, that was the start of his art career. He picked up techniques and skills from his mentor.

After a year he pursued of another opportunity which he learnt from TV, again, at the National Museum.

Here he met Patrick Odoyo, head of the Museum Exhibitions Department. Odoyo introduced him to Kevin and Shack and from then on, he’s been working on various projects with them.

“I was also an IDP in Kevin’s studio at Kuona Trust until I applied for and got studio space of my own,” he recalled. “I was first put on a three-month trial period to see if I had the talent and incentive to work. I’ve been there ever since.”

Garang’s artistic energies are no longer in dispute. His Mask exhibition makes it quite clear that he may be ‘self-taught’ but has been mentored by masters.

He’s fond of sculpture although he’s still at an experimental stage in his artistic development. His mask exhibition testifies to that.
Working with an array of mixed media, Garang has created his own narrative of the history of masks. Creating them out of wood and scrap metal, including the tops and whole bodies of spray paint cans, though some of his masks look more primitive than others.

“In the beginning, people used masks as part of religious ceremonies,” he says.

His exhibition ‘The Journey of the Masks’ feels like it’s an anthropological study, he lapsed into stories associating his masks with a “Night Watchman”, a “Mama Africa” and even a side walk “Newspaper vendor.”

But his apparently random choice of mask subjects doesn’t really depreciate one’s appreciation of Garang’s imaginative usage of mixed media.

For instance, his “Peace Mask” is made out of flattened spray cans; his “Vase Mask” is made with a combination of random metal wires, nuts and bolts.

While his ‘Mama Africa’ is carved out of wood and then covered in nylon and plastic sheets as well as pieces of those spray cans.

My favourite mask is his Newspaper Vendor who he says resembles a real vendor, particularly the one that is situated himself not far from Kuona’s front gate.

The vendor is actually more than a mask. Garang has created a scarecrow like man, complete with a shirt and trousers and an old pair of dirty tennis shoes.

Garang appreciates the fact that he is new on the local art scene, but he’s absorbing influences and artistic energies like a sponge and it’s obvious the journey being revealed in his mask show is the journey he is on himself.

PORTRAITS OF MANY KENYAN ARTISTS BY DALE WEBSTER

Portraits reveal wealth of talent in Kenya’s vibrant art world

Dale Webster’s with self portrait (left); portraits of Michael Soi (top left), Justus Kyalo (centre) and Philipa Hermann-Ndisi (right). Photo/MARGARETTA WA GACHERU

By Margaretta wa Gacheru

Posted Thursday, April 24 2014 at 18:48

In Summary

Dale Webster's Red Hill Art Gallery show has nearly all of who are leading contemporary Kenyan artists.

Dale Webster has been painting and drawing practically all his life, although professionally he’s been a philosopher, art historian and university lecturer up until he came to Kenya four years ago with a mind to finally pursue his real passion — portrait painting.

That passion came to fruition this past weekend when the British artist’s portrait project opened at the Red Hill Art Gallery.

This was not the first time Webster had shown some of his portrait paintings. His recent participation in a group show at Le Rustique focused on ‘‘ordinary’’ Kenyans, hard working men and women whose paintings reflected their resilience and inner strength.

Those same sort of inner feelings are reflected in his Red Hill show, only this time his collection of works represents an impressive constellation of extra-ordinary people, nearly all of who are leading contemporary Kenyan artists.

Several are first class jewellery makers, among them Njee Muturi and Rhodia Mann; a few are photographers like Philipa Hermann-Ndisi and Xavier Verhoest; at least one is a sculptor, Maggie Otieno; another is an installation artist, Jackie Karuti.

And there’s even one glass artist, Nani Croze, who’s created a kind of modern glass art museum at her sprawling home in Maasai-land.

All of them found their way into Webster’s life; all of who one can easily describe as modern-day masters. But the vast majority of the portraits are of painters who Webster rubs shoulders with during exhibition openings like the one hosted at Red Hill by Erica and Hellmuth Musch-Rossler, two retired European public health workers who spent much of their lives working all around Africa before settling on Kenya as the place best suited to start their new career as gallery proprietors.

Hellmuth has been collecting African art for decades and had always dreamed of one day opening a gallery of his own.

That dream, now realised with the support of his wife, was sufficient to have Webster also include Hellmuth in his galaxy of glorious portraits, all of which have an uncanny resemblance to the artists themselves.

But if Hellmuth qualified — as an art curator — to be in this artist-heavy collection, Webster also painted one art connoisseur and ubiquitous Kenyan art collector, Sandeep Desai, in this auspicious exhibition.

One can’t name all the painters that Webster picked to be in his show, people who he claims crossed his path and also agreed to grant him time for a brief sitting wherein he not only sketched but also snapped a few photographs.

Among the painters that he got to agree to take part in his portraiture project were Michael Soi and Thom Ogongo, both are currently exhibiting their own art at Alliance Francaise.

Then there was Beatrice Wanjiku who is also, coincidentally, holding a one-woman show at One Off gallery. There are a wide range of well-known local artists like Patrick Mukabi, Mary Collis, Peterson Kamwathi, Peter Elungat, Justus Kyalo and Anthony Okello; all are among Kenya’s most prominent and globally collected visual artists.

Webster also recognised a number of Pan African painters such as El Tayeb Dawelbeit from Sudan and Ermias Ekube from Eritrea, two artists who easily identified themselves with the Kenyan arts community upon their arrival several years ago.
Webster didn’t set out to paint the ‘‘who’s who’’ of contemporary Kenyan art. He wouldn’t claim to have that kind of clout to reshape the local arts landscape.

What he did do was to offer artists like Boniface Maina and Joseph Cartoon an opportunity to have their portraits painted, which now secures them a place in Kenyan art history as among those who the former art historian (who lectured both at universities of Leeds and Sierra Leone) recognised as special human beings specifically because they are visual artists.

One doesn’t doubt that there are quite a few more local artists who wouldn’t mind finding their way into Webster’s ongoing portraiture project. It’s an easy assumption to make given the overwhelming turnout at Red Hill Gallery last weekend for Webster’s exhibition opening.

Almost every artist whose face was featured in his show came last Sunday; and one could see they were pleased to be included in the collection of art by someone who I believe is one of the finest portrait painters of our time.

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

KENYAN COFFEE-MAKING BARISTA TO COMPETE AT GLOBAL CHAMPIONSHIP IN ITALY:- my version of the story

BARISTA COMPETITION SEND KENYAN TO WORLD FINALS IN ITALY

By Margaretta wa Gacheru

[Published April 22, 2014 in Business Daily, but radically different from this, my original version of the story which was completely revised]

The 11^th Kenyan National Barista Championship, held over two days last week (April 16^th and 17^th) in conjunction with the Africa Fine Coffee Association at the Junction Mall, confirmed that the art of coffee making has not only become a competitive sport.

The event also confirmed that the barista has become a recognized professional in Kenya where a coffee drinking culture has increasingly taken hold among consumers.

In the West, coffee drinking is a common practice with the coffees of East Africa considered the finest in the world.

“Uganda is the leading coffee exporter in the region while Ethiopia is the largest coffee producer, but Ethiopians drink most of their coffee,” said Godfrey Batte, acting Executive Director of the Africa Coffee Academy.

As many as forty baristas or coffee makers from Kenya’s leading hotels and coffee houses participated in the first day of the competition that shortlisted the 40 down to 17; and then by the end of the day the finalists were honed down to six.

They were baristas Martin Shabaya of the Art Caffe, Faith Lila from the Nairobi Hilton, Florence Anyango from Crown Plaza, Eric Kimathi from Java Coffee House, Rodha Wambui from Serena Nairobi and Martin Opiyo also from Java Coffee House.

In the end, barista Eric Kimathi was judged to be the most impressive of the six. That means he will represent Kenya at the World Barista Championship to be held this June in Rimini, Italy.

“The three winners [in Italy] will go home with trophies as well as cash prizes,” said Rozy Rana, Dormans’ managing director.

Kenyan baristas have been represented at the international level ever since the National Championship was first established eleven years back by Dormans’ Coffee.

“Since 2003 our finalists have traveled everywhere from Italy, Australia and Japan to Columbia and Denmark to attend the World Barista Championship,” said Sam Njiru, Thursday’s master of ceremonies as well as the unit manager of Dormans Karen Crossroads Coffee House.

Explaining that this year, the Kenya Barista Championship was sponsored by Dormans together with Java Coffee House, Junction Mall and La Marzocco coffee machines, Dormans Sales Manager Ken Teyie added that the Kenya Barista Championship had this year taken on a higher public profile than in years past.

It’s as if Kenya’s coffee-drinking culture had come of age, given the competition was judged by both international and regional judges as well as by Kenyans. Out of the seven, the Head Judge is Italian, Enrico Wurm from La Marzocco and he was assisted by WBC-certified judge Clare Rwajatogoro of the Uganda Coffee Development Authority. The other judges included Mark Okuta and Jackie Nanjego both from Uganda and Kenyans Gabriel Kariuki from Theta Country Farm, Ken Wangusiof Ole Sereni Hotel and Keziah Mwacha of Hotel Intercontinental.

The other factor that lifted the Kenya Barista Championship to a higher level is the fact that training of baristas has been stepped up not only with Dormans running its own certified Barista Training Centre in conjunction with the Speciality Coffee Association of Europe, but the Uganda-based Africa Coffee Academy opening a branch for training baristas on Mombasa Road early this year.

During the Kenyan competition, baristas were judged for their presentation of three different coffee products, namely espresso, cappuccino and each barista’s own ‘signature drink’.

This year’s signature drinks featured espresso mixed with either red grape, blueberry. red cherry or orange juice with cinnamon spice.

“What’s important to the judges is that the espresso favor remains distinct no matter what is mixed in the signature drink,” said Rozy Rana.

That was one aspect of the sensory criteria used by the judges to appraise the barista finalists. What was also important was the technical skill of each candidate meaning their ability to operate the various coffee brewing machines as well as to create all three drinks in a specific period of time.

To become a winner in the Championship, baristas have had to go through a rigorous training before they can combine both technical skill and creativity sufficient to compete in national finals.

Among the major hotels and coffee houses that took part in the Barista Championship were Hilton Hotel, Sarova Group, Art Caffé, Nairobi Java, Flamingo Resort Mombasa, Serena Hotels, Crown Plaza, Boma Inn and Fairview Hotel as well as others that didn’t go past the preliminary round which was held earlier in April.

Among the previous barista champions who went to the World Championships were Rhoda Wambui and Peter Owiti.

Friday, April 18, 2014

'Borrowed Life' script by Seth Busolo shows pain and passion for financial fraud

Greed and blind obsession the dominant themes in new play

Cornelius (Justin Karunguru) the comedic con man on stage in Seth Busolo’s play ‘‘Borrowed Life.’’

Photo/MARGARETTA WA GACHERU

By Margaretta wa Gacheru

Posted Thursday, April 17 2014 at 18:13

In Summary

Borrowed Life is a play that originally offered a sensitive portrait of a troubled woman (the likes of whom also dwell in our midst) so plagued with insecurity and need to compensate with cash and all the status symbols money can buy that she is prepared to risk her family, including a new born child.

Watching the remake of a brilliant and thought-provoking play can be like watching the sequel to a blockbuster movie.

The plots may be similar but the follow up is rarely as mind-boggling or stunning as the first time round.

This is what happened with Seth Busolo’s Borrowed Life that premiered last month at the Michael Joseph Centre and got restaged last weekend at the Alliance Francaise due to popular demand.

It revolves around one woman’s greed, naked ambition and blind obsession to get rich quickly using other people’s money, having devised her own mini pyramid scheme.

But there was a fundamental shift in the story the second time round largely due to the feedback that Wholesome Entertainment Productions (meaning the playwright Seth Busolo and the play’s producer Daisy Busolo) sought during their show’s first run.

Some members in the first audiences found the play “too serious” and “not funny enough”. They wanted a few more laughs and less dramatic indepth probing into the motivation and the methods of how a seemingly successful woman like Melissa (Manda Khabetsa) could go from being a loving wife and popular broadcast journalist to a crooked con artist who ultimately gets caught running a racket comparable to a Bernie Madoff-styled pyramid scheme.

When Melissa finally gets caught, she’s in debt to the tune of Sh40 million. Her soft-hearted, long-suffering husband Adam (Brian Ogola), who has been through a scam similar to this one with his wife once before, doesn’t have the cash to pay her bail so the play ends with the very pregnant Melissa left to give birth to their first baby while still in jail.

These are sobering notions but with a cast as competent as Wholesome’s, the play was not only conceivable and credible, it also mirrored a social reality that operates both in Kenya as well as elsewhere globally.

What was unfortunate about the staging the second time was that the Busolos took seriously the feedback that called for more laughs and escapist entertainment and less serious social realism.

The first production of Borrowed Life had a fair amount of ingenious comic relief in the shape of Cornelius (Justin Karunguru), the jua kali mechanic and small scale con man who devised his own set of tricks to get rich quick, and then show off his spoils —shiny new status symbols like a big, brand new car and a full set of pricey golf clubs.

The other sleazy but amusing character in a schizophrenic sort of way is Mr Juma (Timothy Ndiisi), the sinister shylock whose mafia-like tendencies are thinly cloaked by his humorous edge and apparent good will.

But where we saw the biggest shift between the first and second version of the play is in the Busolo’s rewriting of the script to give more air time to the light hearted banter between Cornelius the con and Juma the shrewd lethal crook who not only deceives naive teenage girls like Melissa’s 19-year-old niece Jessica (Joyce Maina), but Juma is also renowned for eliminating debtors who don’t pay up in good time.

By adding more levity to a serious dramatic script aimed at highlighting the problematic nature of greed and Melissa’s penchant for plotting what she thought were clever pyramid schemes, Busolo falls prey to almost losing the critical essence of his play.

Borrowed Life at its core isn’t an escapist production. It’s a play that originally offered a sensitive portrait of a troubled woman (the likes of whom also dwell in our midst) so plagued with insecurity and need to compensate with cash and all the status symbols money can buy that she is prepared to risk her family, including a new born child.

By swapping that dramatic core for laughs, Busolo sacrifices one of the most interesting elements of the play, Melissa’s psychological descent from simply stealing funds from her chama to building a whole business based on fraudulent investing in the foreign exchange market.

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ISK/FOTA SHOW FILLED WITH NEW TALENTS & OLD VETERANS

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Friends of the Arts provide a sale platform for Kenyan artists

Isabellah Mosigisi’s ‘‘Her Garden’’. Photo/FILE

Isabellah Mosigisi’s ‘‘Her Garden’’. Photo by Margaretta wa Gacheru

By MARGARETTA WA GACHERU

Posted Thursday, April 17 2014 at 18:31

In Summary

Artists participate in the annual event to showcase their latest work and to sell.

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One of the most highly anticipated visual arts event of the year is the annual Friends of the Arts (FOTA).

Held at the International School of Kenya (ISK) it provides a platform for local artists to showcase their work and sell.

ISK, which is situated on a former coffee plantation, offers a spacious setting especially at the new multipurpose exhibition hall located in the school’s new building complex called The Commons.

It’s a well-organised show by a group of volunteers known as FOTA who work for months to make the show a major success.

All artists in the ISK Show had one requirement to create one small artwork to put on The Artists' Wall. pix by margaretta wa gacheru

The artists make no secret of the fact that the main reason most of them look forward to the FOTA show is because of its consistently and has become an event where artists can sell their art work.

Alex Wainaina's Lord of the Flies. Pix by margaretta wa gacheru

There is a mutual agreement between the artists and FOTA to keep the prices of the art “affordable”. FOTA promotes the event, primarily through the ISK channels, encouraging families, staff and friends to attend the weekend show of more than 200 works of Kenyan contemporary art.

This year, FOTA looked low-key in their promotion of the exhibition which featured works by 102 artists, majority of who were Kenyan artists, with works by some Ugandan, Sudanese and British being on display.

Sculptor David Mwaniki with his Black Beauty. Mwaniki is also leaning on the Beauty's sculpted legs! pix by Margaretta
The lack of the loud marketing noise was due to security fears. An issue that nearly caused havoc at the entrance of the show where security guards, following ‘orders from above,’ nearly refused entry to established Kenyan artists whose art works was exhibited at the show.

The artists had forgotten to carry their identification cards, which we were mandatory for entrance.

A solution was ultimately found after a senior security man arrived on the scene. And despite the low-key promotion the crowd grew when the doors were officially opened

Eric Ngure's Loud Mouth is an ingenious assemblage of broken fixtures and spare parts. pix by margaretta

Improved sales

The final figures on sales are yet to be announced but from my estimations it compared well to last year’s when more than 80 per cent of the art works was sold, raising millions of shillings.

This year 75 per cent of the sales will go back to each individual artist with FOTA taking 25 per cent, which will partially go to the Dada Rescue Centre and also to assist ISK to covering the costs of hosting visiting artists.

According to the school’s acting curator Geff Boyer, the only requirement put upon artists whose works were picked to appear in the show was that they create one small, 40 centimetres by 40 centimetres painting especially for the FOTA show.

Anthony Muya's Bicycle Ride. pix by Margaretta wa Gacheru

Those small works covered one whole wall of the new ISK gallery and served as a major attraction to art ‘shoppers’ who proceeded to buy up almost all of the ‘affordable’ paintings on that wall.

This year, there were many established Kenyan artists in the Show, including Michael Soi and Thom Ogonga, both of whom are now exhibiting at Alliance Francaise, as well as 2nd prize winner at this year’s Manjano Art Show Dennis Muraguri, Patrick Mukabi and the most venerable veteran Kenyan artist in the exhibition, Zachariah Mbutha also participated.

Veteran artist Zachariah Mbutha's Water Scarcity. pix by margaretta wa gacheru

There was quite a substantial number of newcomers this year including Tahir Karmali, sculptor Meshak Oino, Bobea Gallery based Isabellah Mosigisi, quilt artist Mandy Chesterman, Vasinder Phull and Wambui Kamiru, whose installation, Harambee 63, was recently displayed at Kuona and is currently on show in South Africa.

The FOTA Show allows close followers of Kenyan art world to see who is stuck in a rut and who is advancing into new spheres of experimentation and subject matter.

Quilt by Patty Arenson. pix by margaretta wa gacheru

In this regard, there were some disappointments, especially repetition of work show cased last year.

But there were also new innovative work by artists such as Evans Ngure whose main art material is recycled old computer parts, DVD players, broken thermostats and the classic crushed beer and soda cans.

Adrian Nduma also stepped out of his penchant for abstract expression and painted an endangered species, the Rhino, which had such a look of dignity and strength. One felt the need to protect it from poachers.

The FOTA show and sale ran through Wednesday, April 16th. Artists can also be followed using the handy listing of all the artists’ contacts assembled by FOTA.

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COLOURIST MARY COLLIS FIND INSPIRATION IN HER GARDEN

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Artist who draws inspiration from her home garden

Mary Collis by her orchids in her garden. Photo/MARGARETTA WA GACHERU

By MARGARETTA WA GACHERU

Posted Thursday, April 17 2014 at 17:14

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Alan and Mary Collis moved into their home in Loresho in 1976. The home, which sits on a 2.5 acre plot, came with an unkempt, overgrown garden which ended at Mathare River.

Soon Alan took up the role of restoring the garden, it all started with two thorn trees, a flame tree, several palms and a monkey puzzle tree.

Today the beautiful garden is a source of inspiration for Mary, one of Kenya’s leading abstract expressionist artists and the co-founder of Rahimtullah Museum of Modern Art (RaMoMa).

She founded it with Carol Lees and currently being revived on Mfangano Street in the Rahimtullah Library.

Mary admits she is not, and never was, a gardener but it’s in her garden that she draws inspiration. As a colourist, she favours gardens that are rich in a wide variety of riotous hues giving the example of the late Erica Boswells garden, founder of the former Jax fashion house.

“We left Just about half of our land (2.5 acres) to remain as it was, wild and overgrown, which has a natural beauty of its own, especially as all of those trees are indigenous to this area of Nairobi,” says Mary, who has been painting her own as well as other people’s gardens for many years.

She loves the variegated shades of green that she finds in her own garden. Her garden boasts a variety of shrubs, succulents and the majestic Monkey Puzzle tree, known as the Araucaria araucana or the Chilean Pine, which seems to crown her front lawn with a dazzling display of abundant verdant vines that hug and spread out widely around the base of a tree.

The trunk of the 38 year old tree rises strong, thick and erect with the leafy green branches that veritably explode at the top of the puzzle tree extend in the sky almost as widely as the vines on the ground.

For Mary, the only tree in her garden that can match the Monkey Puzzle for majesty and strength is the Mugumo tree (Fig tree). “It’s been here long before we arrived so we have no intention of ever chopping it down,” said the second generation Kenyan.

One of her favourite shrubs in her back yard is an Indian Almond, a large tropical tree known as Terminalia catappa, which she says the birds adore. They are always hanging around it, especially as it’s not far from the bird feeder, she says.

One of her greatest delights is waking up and having breakfast at her veranda which looks directly out on the Indian Almond and seeing bird watching.

She draws a lot of inspiration from her rose garden, which was not in full bloom when we arrived recently.

She anticipates painting it again when the roses are flush with bright beautiful hues of pink, yellow, white and bright red.

It’s hard to tell that the colour scheme in her abstract expressionist art comes directly from her garden. Often the work looks like splashes of colour, not discrete pink or purple petals bound together at the stem.

One of her favourite flowers in the garden, apart from the roses, is the Orchid. Her orchids are in portable pots so she can take them out into the open air when it rains but also to have them close at hand for inspiration.

“All the orchids I have are indigenous to Kenya, and they are beautiful,” she says.

Mary is a self-taught artist who began her career as a graphic designer but gradually realised her first love was actually painting not graphics.

Mary and Alan live on the far west end of the Mathare River Valley and the lush floral greenery of their garden gives one an inkling of what the same Mathare Valley must have looked like many years ago when it was still well-watered bush.

Today it’s more of a slum devoid of the vegetation.

One can only hope that one day the entire city of Nairobi will again be the green ‘city in the sun’, just as lush and cared for and conserved as the space occupied by the Collis’s.

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

DALE WEBSTER'S GALLERY OF CONTEMPORARY KENYAN ARTISTS, ART CONNAISSEURS & CURATORS

CLASSIC COLLECTION OF PORTRAITS OF CONTEMPORARY KENYAN ARTISTS

Patrick mukabi is one of Dale Webster portraits currently on exhibition at Red Hill Art Gallery

MORE TO COME...

MANJANO GIVES KENYAN ARTISTS CASH AWARDS FOR CREATIVITY

Manjano finally puts a price on Kenyan art

Kennedy Munala Atsullu, the winner of the Sh300, 000 first prize in the Nairobi County Visual Arts Exhibition for his mixed media sculpture.

By Margaretta wa Gacheru

Posted Sunday, April 13 2014 at 14:01

In Summary

The annual Nairobi County Visual Art Exhibition has shown that creating homegrown art can be fulfilling and lucrative

Putting a monetary value on contemporary Kenyan art isn’t an easy thing to do.

Some say it is valueless and young people especially should not waste their time on it. These are the educators and politicians who felt justified in removing Art as an examinable subject from the schools’ curriculum.

Others respect Kenyan art so highly that they get representative pieces of it into leading galleries and museums all over Europe and America.

Many in this latter category also collect contemporary Kenyan art simply for the love of it or as an assured investment that can only accrue in value over time.

In Kenya, the best evidence that creating home grown art can be both a fulfilling and lucrative enterprise is the annual Nairobi County Visual Art Exhibition, also known as Manjano.

Artists at Manjanao can win anything between Sh15,000 to Sh300,000 in the adjudicated competition that accompanies the exhibition itself.

First prize winner in the Manjano Student Category was Elstardt Kegen's Nai Ni Nani. pix by wa Gacheru

This year’s Manjano winners, who were announced on Thursday night at the Village Market, included both students as well as seasoned local artists.

Six in all were selected out of the 175 artworks submitted for consideration. The three student winners received Sh15,000, Sh30000 and Sh50000 while the more experienced artists got Sh75,000, Sh150,000 and Sh300,000.

Keeping everyone present at the Village Market Exhibition Hall in suspense, Judy Ogana, the director of the GoDown Art Centre (which organised the exhibition and ran the adjudication process) announced the winners in the student category first.

Mark Gisiora took the third place for his mixed media painting Waste Gate, Samira Saidi took the second position for City Rush and Elsardt Kegen Amulyuta’s painting Nai Ni Nani won first place.

Two of the three student winners, Samira and Gisiora, are currently being mentored at the GoDown by art instructor Patrick Mukabi.

Patrick Mukabi, artist and mentor par excellence, has tutored many Manjano award winning student artists. This year he mentored two: Samira Saidi and Ken Gsiora. pix by wa gacheru

The winning trio in front of Samira Saidi's second prize winning painting.

In previous years, since Manjano was first established in 2010, Mr Mukabi’s students have consistently won awards for their art and creative expression.

In 2010, the lead organiser of what was then the annual Nairobi Provincial Art Exhibition was the Department of Culture in collaboration with the GoDown.

Unfortunately, that first year, the government allocated only Sh35,000 for the entire exhibition, so there were no cash incentives to artists.

Once the GoDown took charge of the exhibition, the value of Kenya’s art was monetised, with Sh620,000 set aside for prizes alone. Michael Soi, whose art is currently on exhibition at Alliance Francaise together with that of Thom Ogonga and John Kamicha, won Sh300,000 that year.
This year the Sh300,000 went to Kennedy Munala Atsullu for his mixed media sculpture entitled Manyanga wa Embakasi.

The second prize of Sh150,000 went to Dennis Muraguri for his mixed media collage entitled Bus Stop and the third prize of Sh75,000 went to Moses Nyawanda for Koinange Street Reloaded.

Second prize winning painting is Bus Stop by Dennis Muraguri who won ksh150,000

In 2014 it seemed there were many more artists submitting their work in the student category than in the seasoned one.

One reason for this shift, according to some of the more experienced local artists, is because they feel that having their art hung side by side with that of students was a “put down” and would depreciate the value of their art.

Other seasoned artists like Dennis Muraguri said Manjano offers opportunities for all visual artists to be appreciated both socially and monetarily. His winning the second prize in the mature artists’ category vindicated that point of view.

The adjudicators were selected by the GoDown for their experience, neutrality and unbiased perspectives on Kenyan art.

They were Thom Ogonga, a painter and arts blogger; Wendy Karmali, formerly a curator with the National Museums of Kenya and Oluwatosin Onile-Ere Rotimi, a Nigerian arts consultant currently based in Nairobi.

A number of observers and connoisseurs of Kenyan art present on Thursday night saw the reality of more young artists submitting their work to Manjano than the older more established ones as a healthy sign since it suggests new blood and a more expansive field of creative expression coming alive in Kenya.

What is clear from the overwhelming support among young artists for Manjano is that the visual arts are becoming an important asset to Kenya’s creative economy and generating monetary value and wealth for the country’s ‘creatives’ who are based in the arts and culture sector.

Unfortunately, the government has not yet followed precedents set by various UN agencies to calculate what percentage of the country’s GDP is currently being generated by the creative economy, (revenues earned in the arts and culture sector), but hopefully that will be forthcoming.

Currently, a country like the UK generates more than 12 per cent of its GDP from its creative economy. Kenyan ‘creatives’ claim they can generate even higher percentages than that in the near future.

Manjano is a significant factor stimulating the sort of interest in and enthusiasm for the visual arts that will help make that claim a reality.

Saturday, April 12, 2014

THEATRE REVIEW OF GEORGE MUNGAI'S ADAPTATION OF AWARD-WINNING PLAY, CLYBOURNE PARK

This review appeared in Business Daily of April 11, 2014. review coming shortly