By
Andrew Mulenga
As hinted
last week, artist and Zambia Open University (ZAOU) Senior Fine Art lecturer William
Miko has been on something of an express train regarding his activities of late,
but perhaps most notable, is his return to the studio as a practicing artist
and subsequently exhibiting in a three-man show entitled Borderless Women, which opened on 8 March and ran until to 20 May
2015 at the Voksenåsen Cultural Centre in Oslo, Norway.
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| Miko in his Ibex Hill studio before shipping his recent works to Norway early this year |
He
shares his experience of the Norway exhibition and how he managed to find time
to paint when he was not marking student’s assignments, and as usual he also
stresses how important university level education for Zambian visual artists.
“I must
thank the Management and staff of Voksenasen for this display opportunity and
indeed my two colleagues Narek Aghajanyan from Armenia and Jamal Ahmed from
Bangladesh for agreeing to exhibit with me,” he says
“It
really felt highly satisfying, I had to call on inherent perceptive instincts
of working for this themed show. As you are aware the theme Borderless focused on celebrating the
power of women and their contribution to humanity as evidenced by such pieces
of artworks like The portrait of a street
vender which was inspired by the resilience of street venders along Lumumba
road here in Lusaka, mostly women, who I see every morning converge, mount
their merchandise along busy traffic roads and dismount their stalls late in
the evening as I drive past them on my way to and from university work in
Lusaka West.”
 |
| Portrait Of A Street Vendor, 2015, Oil on canvas, 112 x 115 cm by William B. Miko |
He stresses
that this portrait is a hypothetical representation of that individual woman’s hard
work and contribution to human existence. The exhibition also included a cluster of 10
small paintings called the African
Orgasms series and most of the medium sized pieces on display were crowd
scenes, as well as a new body of work which was inspired by folklore, that he
calls the Anthropo-zoomorphic series.
But what
is perhaps most fascinating about Miko’s work is the production process, although
viewers and collectors alike never get to experience this. His style is in fact
a mark-making process and when you find him in full swing working on a
painting, you hear the violent and almost primal scratches of a palette knife
as it scrapes paint against the canvas either reductively or additively depending
on what aesthetic he wants to achieve or perhaps depending on which direction
the life-forces or his emotional state will guide him. Many artists who work in
passionate repetitive rhythms like abstract expressionists or stone sculptors,
often enter in to trance-like frenzies spurting their creativity out in spasms
something akin to the work of a mystic who is heaving what is within.
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| Tubalye Tubalye - my brother-in-law, 2015, Oil on canvas, 125 x 68 cm by William B. Miko |
Interestingly,
Miko indicates that when he is in an exhibition looking at one of his finished works
on the wall, he can still hear the echoes of his palette knife scratching away
at the canvas, for him, the creative process of a painting does not end in the
studio, but follows it like a spectre.
Nevertheless,
contrary to the widely held observation that painting as a medium is dying out in
Europe, Miko’s disagrees.
“Painting
is just a material of expression that the West has been using for centuries
now, if it is less appealing or perceived to be so that is still a matter for
debate. People out there and the rest of the world are still responding to
paintings as a means of expression. We had a very good crowd at the opening:
Among other guests were the likes of Norwegians who have collaborated and
worked with Zambia, former ambassador to Zambia Terje Victel, and many others,
Brit Botheim and Aase Marie from Kunstbanken, Prof. Michael O'Donell including
long gone from Zambia artists such as Gemain Ngoma and Victor Mutelesha and my
own brother Jerry and his family,” he says.
 |
| Can I Be The Witness, 2015, Oil on canvas, 199 x 150 cm by William B. Miko |
“Also, the
purpose of holding a show differs from artist to artist, I guess I am more
concerned with the people coming to see the show once it’s on display than
sales attained at the end of it. However, I can say that on the spot, a large
piece titled Can I Be the Witness a
commentary on why the reports on the death of Dag Hammarskjold here in Zambia
ignored African eye witnesses, except for one or two.”
He says
this painting immediately attracted the attention of the Voksenasen Management
and has since been collected and joins another large piece of his called The Journey that was purchased in 2006 and
is displayed in the centres public foyer.
“It is
important that the value of artworks reflect consistency with one's development
as an artist. Usually, I have no challenges in valuing my artworks as art does
not depreciate and the value of art is usually aligned with career honesty and
which is hypothetically constant,” he adds.
Commenting
on his passion to teach and the work he is doing at ZAOU, Miko shares his
sacrifices, his vision as well as the everyday challenges he faces.
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| When he is in the studio, the ZAOU senior art lecturer calls himself a prisoner of art |
“This
personal commitment, however, comes with its share of advantages and
disadvantages: to state the latter, its disadvantage is being compelled to work
‘26 hours’ (twenty six hours) a day, one has to find two extra hours to sleep.
There are also implementation frustrations that need to be dealt with in
actualising this degree in fine arts being the first of its kind since
independence in 1964,” asserts the artist who is also Vice Chairman of the
Lechwe Trust, a non-profit organisation that focuses on art scholarships and
the collection of art by Zambian artists.
And one
has just to deliver all round, finding time for oneself to be creative in the solitary
confines of an art studio is what one must always strive to achieve. So, I have
had to learn to create time within timeless moments. Apart from administrative
and theoretical engagements, there must be three to four hours a day or night
that must be invested in studio art practice as an artist.”
He
further suggests that educating Zambia’s creative citizenry and artists to
university degree levels is inevitable if the country is to remain competitive in
today’s global art world. He adds that ZAOU currently has over 100 (hundred)
fine arts students on BA degree level of study and their enthusiasm and anxiety
to learn is what compels him to carry on despite all odds. Miko is also the architect
of a philosophy he has coined “correcting a national anomaly”, in reference to
the long absence of an art degree in Zambia and the general deficiency of art
education. The philosophy attempts to respond to these questions.
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