By Andrew Mulenga
Voices
of Colour, the ongoing exhibition at the Zebra Crossing Café,
Ababa House in Lusaka, brings together a vibrant band of artists coming from a diverse
range of backgrounds as kaleidoscopic as the paintings they have on display.
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| Girl, acrylic on canvas by Jack Menke |
Each of them have personal credentials, artistic styles
and thematic content so unique from one other that this is what actually gives
the exhibition colour or character as it were. The seniormost among them Jack
Menke, is an HIV/tropical medicine specialist by day and a painter by night.
Mapopa Manda, 33 is a politically astute mixed media artist with a witty yet
astute political commentary that focuses on local and global issues and also
comments on anything ranging from social injustices to popular culture and
corruption. Montfort Chinunda, 23 is the restless young talent among them,
always seeking out new ways to express himself in a representational vocabulary
that is heavily accentuated by abstract ornamentations. Last but not least is
the lady of the group Gladys Kalichini, when she is not busy putting her University
of Zambia Economics degree to good use doing some number-crunching at a leading
telecommunications company, the twenty-something-year-old is busy dabbling with
paint.
Egg-shaped characters that slightly gaze away from
the viewer with wide eyes have become Menke’s signature, the subtly forlorn
expressions on their faces are at times hard to read there is no telling
whether they project sadness, happiness, or both, this ambiguity is buffered
only by the infectious warmth of the artist’s pallete and the cartoon-like
appearance of the subjects.
“I see myself as a painter and an AIDS activist. My
work as an AIDS activist is all around (the acceptance of) Anti-retroviral
treatment with the artist collaborative art4art. Art in my opinion can be used
to clarify or promote discussion about social issues of any sort. Art4art was
registered as a Zambian NGO in 2009 and has organized several exhibitions on
the subjects of HIV stigma, adherence and antiretroviral treatment (ART),”
stresses the artist who is also Technical Director at Elizabeth Glaser Paediatric
AIDS Foundation in Lusaka.
“I greatly admire the art of the insane, prisoners,
children, and primitive artists. Children are close to the sources of
creativity and create free of models or previous examples. In my own work I
strive to achieve a similar untutored simplicity, often by employing intense
colours and by line drawing in an unstudied manner uninfluenced by convention.
One of my aims as an artist, is to "make secret visions visible”.
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| A piece of me, acrylic on canvas by Monty |
Although the Netherlands-born artist has been in
Zambia working as a medical practitioner since 1998, he has only been
exhibiting consistently on the Lusaka art scene for the past five years. He was
also a key co-ordinator during the construction of Anti-Retroviral man a large
scrap metal statue that was mounted at the Lusaka National Museum in 2011, an
ode to the fight against stigma.
Apart from his medical studies, Menke obtained an
MA, Art History from the Universiteit Leiden in 1991, in his final thesis he examined
the Russian Cubo-futurist opera (1913) "the Victory over the Sun" by Malevich,
Kroetsjonych, Matjoesjin and Chlebnikov.
“I find the inspiration for my work in my classical
art education and my work as a Tropical Medicine specialist. I try to combine
these sources into art that makes you smile out loud. My work is influenced by
my favourite artist from the renaissance Jacomo di Pontormo, and modern masters
such as Paul Klee, Jean Dubuffet, and Jean Miro,” states Menke whose favourite
haunt has been the Art Academy without Walls (AAWW) in the Lusaka showground’s
since 2007.
Manda’s work, while as colourful as Menke’s is on a
different thematic plain as earlier mentioned. But although the fellow AAWW and Art4art artist
still maintains his politically steeped paintings, he appears to be more
meticulous in the detail of his magazine and newspaper clippings, both in the
use of the images and headlines that he chooses to paste into his paintings. He
seems to be advancing the style as far as he can and in his own radical way
keeps gnawing at the heels of the politicians and while it can be argued that most
Zambian politicians may have no interest in art at all and perhaps never attend
exhibitions -- yes including the so-called honourable Minsters and permanent
secretaries whose job it may be to do so -- he appears resilient an continues
with his messages.
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| News of the world, acrylic and collage on canvas by Mapopa Manda |
Chinunda, or Monty as he is fondly called has been
practicing art from as far back as he can remember although strongest memories
of his foundation are rooted in his days at Kalomo High School where the
National Theatre Art Association of Zambia presented him with the District Junior
Theatre Art Festival Award. Like Menke and Manda, the Kapiri-Mposhi-born artist
also calls the AAWW his studio space and he too expresses himself in vibrantly
bold colours.
“I create a deliberate push and pull between near
photorealistic detail and my own vocabulary of visual glitches that challenge
the very realism. I paint and draw to remain wholly representational while
functionally abstract. This duality is central to my work and allows the
figures to evoke emotions with or without defining them,” states Monty who is
now a staple at the Zebra Crossings shows, his style remains consistent and
echoes the few years spent under the highflying Zambian painter Stary Mwaba’s
apprenticeship.
Kalichini on the other hand appears to be the odd
one out in this quartet, of course not because she is the only woman in the
show, but she is the one with the coolest pallete. The coolness of her tertiary
blues and delicate greys have a subdued aura compared to the work of her colleagues
and this calmness of colour is perhaps matched by the expressionless faces of
her subject matter, case in point the huge panels in her 2015 'Evolution series'. Also very visible in
this body of work is her bold use of line, where she creates sharp edges that
almost translate into silhouettes when coupled with the colour play.
Kalichichini is particularly fascinated by topics of
social imbalance in the third world and her background in economics, and the
many graphs with clean repetitive lines that she deals with at the office creep
into her studio work.
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| Evolution series, acrylic on canvas by Gladys Kalichini |
“I thought it would be interesting to do a lot work
with black and white hues for this show. The contrast against the other
artists' work would be very interesting in my opinion. To evolve the concept of
colour in African paintings not just being the occasional earth tones. The idea
of using colour, or the lack of it to evolve some of my already existing work,
and see it in a different light, in a more simplistic nature is what I find
intriguing, as well as making the images almost as timeless as the very idea of
black and white,” explains Kalichini.
“Well this is what I thought working towards a colour
themed show. Also bearing in mind that the works of my colleagues does indeed
speak volumes. For instance Mapopa (Manda) and how he works with the political
scene, Jack (Menke) with more the social interactions of individuals and Monty
with more cultural based work.”
Practically a self-taught artist apart from
interaction with more experienced artists, she has come a long way and in the
process has managed to bag two Ngoma Awards, in 2010 and 2012 respectively.
Along with Manda and two other young Zambian artists, Kalichini is scheduled
for the Àsìkò: 5th International Art Programme, a competitive 30 day workshop in
Maputo, Mozambique towards the end of this month. Organised by internationally
acclaimed Nigerian curator Bisi Silva, the founder and artistic director of the
Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos, the workshop is aimed at providing
participants with “access to experienced local and international artists and curators,”
provide “One-to-one individual portfolio reviews and feedback about participants
work, encouragement of developing new contemporary practices on the African
continent, sharing knowledge through curatorial lectures, artists’ presentations
and critical debate, help develop new ways of creative thinking by integrating
new elements such as performance, installation and sound projects as well as
foster networking opportunities”.
It is in fact the 2014 version of these workshops
that perceivably lead to Stary Mwaba being selected as the only artist from
Africa for a grant by the KfW Foundation to work and exhibit at the Künstlerhaus
Bethanien in Berlin, Germany for a period of 12 months last year.
For the four Lusaka-based artists that will attend,
this is without doubt a big deal. At no time in the history of contemporary art
in Zambia has such a group of energetic youngsters had the opportunity to go
and receive international coaching over a 30 day period. These are things that
only happen to footballers, but unlike footballers this team is sponsoring
itself and will not be using tax-payers money, so technically they do not owe Zambia
anything. However, they will be doing the local art scene a disservice if they
do not return to share what it is they gather. This does not necessarily mean
they should be compelled to hold classes and workshops. There is much that can
be learned from them if what they acquire trickles down into their work as
artists. It will be interesting to see if they will make the bold decision to become
“real artists” for lack of a better term and not confine themselves to being
the soft-focused, “chocolate-box” Zambian artists so beloved by penny-pinching expatriates
that are known to haggle for high-end gallery art as if it were Sunday market
curios without considering the materials used, the status of the artist and the
conceptualization of ideas that went into the work, often taking advantage of
artists’ hand-to-mouth existence.
It would be interesting to see Manda and Kalichini
return and push their conceptualization to the next level. The so-called global
art world – assuming it is what they want to permeate -- demands that work be
more theoretical which brings us back to the ongoing exhibition. Titles and
themes should never be taken lightly. It is one thing to throw together some
colourful paintings and name the exhibition Voices
of Colour and declare it a “colour themed” show, but colour in itself has
many voices beyond a bunch of pretty images and these voices have even deeper
meanings depending on the vocabulary.
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