By Andrew Mulenga
It is not clear where the paintings, three pieces of Zambia’s heritage are
today, which in itself is worrisome because when Frederick Chiluba took office
the year after they were commissioned, he made it a point to tear down and
destroy everything ‘Kaunda’. This is a period when Saddam Hussein Boulevard in
Lusaka was renamed Los Angeles Boulevard, and a monument bearing Kaunda’s image
opposite the High Court in Ndola was officially defaced among other things. So
probably the three remarkable paintings in question may have been destroyed.
The paintings show a greying, but vibrant Kaunda clad in his trademark neo-Maoist
tunics or safari suits, as some call them, posing in a variety of seated
positions. They are in different shades and he bears a warm, fatherly smile in
all of them. And in each painting, the artist blends the subject softly into a hazy
background.
“I remember finding it a little tricky trying to make each one
distinctive and different from the others. But I did enjoy it enormously - he (Kaunda)
had such a marvelous face to paint. Still has, as a matter of fact,” says
Oenone pronounced ee-no-nee, who is named after a poem by Tennyson that her
mother read and loved so much. Oenone or Noni as she is fondly called says it
is also the name of the Greek Goddess of wine.
Anyway, writing about Noni is difficult. And it is difficult in several angles.
If you focus on the art itself, you rob the article of highlighting her animated
personality. Then there is her sidesplittingly critical world view of
contemporary art, it is easy to get lost in that too. So here goes nothing.
“I was born in South Africa, left at the age of eight and grew up in
Northern Rhodesia, leaving it as Zambia in 1974. During this time, I met and
married my husband of 52 years, Denis, who was born in Chipata (then known as
Fort Jameson) and our two daughters were born in Lusaka,” she tells the Saturday Post “Very happy years indeed,
which we look back on with great nostalgia. My husband was very involved in
Liberal politics before Independence, which is how he met KK, whom he got to
know well. We both regard him with great admiration and affection, and he has
visited us in our London home on more than one occasion over the years”.
She says Dennis worked in mining and this took them to London for 2 and
a half years and then Connecticut in the United States for another 2 and half
years. And while she enjoyed their stay in London, she was never too happy in
the US because she could never fit in to the repetitiveness of life there.
“I cried all the time. I had never been so miserable in my life. Everyone
had two cars, they all went to tennis clinics, PTA meetings, church fete
suppers it was all so not me! 99 per cent of them had never even heard of
Zambia, they just didn't do far-flung countries. As a result, my wonderfully
accommodating husband accepted a marvelous mining job in Chile, where we spent
the next blissful 5 years.”
Noni recalls that apart from anything else, it was a wonderful
opportunity for her to travel and gather material for her paintings. Not only
did she get to travel all over South America, but also India, Thailand, Burma,
Japan, and a few other places. She found this exciting as an artist because it
was almost impossible to settle down to painting your ordinary
man-in-the-street in London with its grey skies and black umbrellas when the
couple finally settled there. Luckily she amassed an enormous archive of photos
and sketches which will last her for a long time; she still draws from it all
the time.
Noni’s portraits bare a very serene and more or less spiritual aura.
When asked whether she is a spiritual person she comes up with a delightfully
peculiar and somewhat cagey answer.
“Spiritual, Serenity? Two words no one who knows me would ever apply to
me. I can hear my husband laughing his head off, and he'd be right, especially
about the serenity. But somehow, once I start painting all the wonderful people
I do, I get drawn into it on a completely different level, and it takes its own
direction,” she explains “I really just
go with the flow, because any other way usually ends in what I consider a disaster.
Hard to explain, really, maybe what I'm saying is - I need to get the mood right
or at least the mood as I feel it. Good God, maybe I am spiritual and serene
after all. If so, I have hidden it well.”
As for her creative process, she says there is something about going up
to her studio at the crack of dawn, closing the door on the rest of the world,
and simply immersing herself in what she does. She underlines that it is a very
solitary profession, leaving one to one’s own thoughts with no intrusions or
illusions.
“Who knows, maybe I become a different person? Or the person I really am
underneath it all? Lord, there’s a thought to ponder. I may have to go and pour
myself a drink after this,” she says.
Prod her to comment on contemporary art, and the likes of Damien Hirst the most prominent
member of a group known as the Young British Artists (YBAs), who shot to fame by incorporating
dead animals such as sharks and cows into his art, making him one of the
wealthiest artists alive just before the global credit crunch in 2008, and you
will not get the kindest sentiments. In 2009, the Sunday Times Rich List projected Hirst’s
wealth at £235 million.
“I'm totally unqualified to comment on the Damien Hirst and
people-of-his-ilk school of art. Mostly because I utterly hate it and think
it's the greatest scam ever, I'm thinking "The
Emperor's Clothes" - ever heard that fairy story? You may be too
young, but look it up if you haven't, and you'll get the allusion,” she says.
In fact, as early as 1991,
advertising tycoon and one time voracious art collector, Charles Saatchi commissioned Hirst to create The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living an artwork that consists of a shark preserved in chemicals. Saatchi is
said to have later sold the work in excess of $8 million dollars.
“It's ugly, untalented, well-marketed, and - for me - everything art
shouldn't be. And he (Hirst) doesn't even do it all himself. And don't get me
started on Tracey Emin… unmade beds, for God's sake. I could churn one out
every day, except I make mine - and that takes talent, let me tell you” she says.
Tracey Emin, one of the YBA’s exhibited My Bed at the celebrated Tate Gallery in London and it was
shortlisted for the Turner Prize. It comprised her bed with personal objects scattered
around it. Saatchi later bought it for £150,000 and displayed it in his
gallery.
“So, Charles Saatchi may not be banging on my door. I'm not his style.
But I can't begin to describe the pleasure it gives me when someone falls in
love with one of my paintings. Especially someone who wouldn't normally buy
one. I had a workman in my studio not long ago repairing something, and found
him gazing at my paintings,” she explains.
“He asked about one or two, and three months later came back, cash in
hand, bought one, and left with a huge smile on his face. Now that touches me,
and I can't think of a better reason for doing what I do. He wasn't buying it
as an investment; he was buying it because he loved it. Means a lot to me.
YBAs? I wish them luck, but I have my niche, and it's one I like.”
As for academic training on her part, she explains that in her day if
you are "Good at Art" at school, it translated and in those days,
meant that if you painted - say- a boat, and it looked like a boat, you were
"good at art" and that is how
things were, a long time ago.
Beyond art, Noni says she enjoys reading, cooking and making long
distance calls to her daughters who live overseas. She does not admit being a
slave to fashion, but confesses to a fancy for chic, high heeled shoes.
“Yes, I read, and I simply refuse to tell you any titles, because
they're all crime novels, and I will lose some charisma, what little I have, by
doing so. It's called escapism, I think. And I cook - actually, I'm pretty good
at it, even though I say so myself, ask anyone,” she boasts.
“Both daughters live in Spain. One has her own Internet company in Madrid;
she's her father's daughter that way. And the other is a movie make-up artist
of renown in Barcelona.
London-based portrait artist Oenone Acheson might not be a familiar name
on the Zambian visual arts scene, but she certainly has a very special spot in
the country’s art history. She may possibly be the last artist to have been
commissioned to paint Dr. Kenneth Kaunda in the last months of his 27 year
reign.
Dr Kenneth Kaunda portrait I, oil on canvas, 1990 by Oenone Acheson |
In 1990, just before Zambia’s transition to a multi-party state, Zambia Consolidated
Copper Mines (ZCCM) commissioned her to paint a portrait of the then president
and board chairman for their new boardroom. It turns out when Dr. Kaunda
attended the opening of the building and the unveiling of the portrait, he
liked the painting so much that he took it back to State House and she was
called the very next day to paint two more portraits just to be on the safe
side.
Dr Kenneth Kaunda portrait II, oil on canvas, 1990 by Oenone Acheson |
Dr Kenneth Kaunda portrait III, oil on canvas, 1990 by Oenone Acheson |
Oenone Acheson in her London studio |
I’m not a fashionista. I like
what I like, including ‘killer heels’ and anything with sequins”.
The trendy grandmother, with pink dyed hair hates being told what she
should or should not be wearing at her age, and ignores all such advisers completely.
“Clothes are clothes, right? And who are these people making the rules?”
she says.
Nevertheless, as much as we can remember her for three portraits of a
president, Zambia has not heard the last of Noni yet. She has a pending
commission to paint the Zambian Speaker Patrick Matibini from the National
Assembly.
“I'll keep you posted on that, if you like. I can't
start it until I've finished an on-going portrait. And finally dear Andrew, I
am so ill-equipped to impart anything at all to younger artists, since I'm
never quite sure of how I get to where I get with my paintings. But I would plead
with them not to embalm any cows. Any undertaker can do that,” says Noni in
obvious reference to the YBAs.
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