Emily returns home for yet another fleeting moment

By Andrew Mulenga

Despite moving to England at a tender age, Emily Kirby’s habitual visits to her Zambian-based parents have clearly had a decisive influence on her work.

Emily Kirby (l) with fellow artist Caroline Miyoba at the
opening of the Africa Revisited exhibition last week

The Londoner is an emerging painter, whose depiction of the Zambian landscape gives it an idealistic aura through her electrifying use of bright colours, evidently defying the fact that she lives and works in a city infamous for its seemingly unfriendly, “mind-your-own-business-type” of citizens and its gloomy weather.

Nevertheless, it is particularly in her depiction of wildlife that she reveals her watchful eye and flair for capturing the dramatized if not theatrical portray of animals in motion, rendering them in a few slashes of oil paint with a palette knife and brush stroke. A typical example is “Lion Hunt” that vaguely renders the shadowy image of a lioness in hot pursuit of warthog.

Lion Hunt (oil on linen) by Emily Kirby

 “I paint quite quickly. I really enjoy the effect it (speed) has on the work and I think it allows you to be quite intuitive in your sense of creating... because I also work from photos that I take spontaneously. I allow movement to come into the painting,” explains the 31-year-old who is currently affiliated to two trendy London galleries.

“I think movement has always been a part of my life from the time I had to leave Zambia. Fleeting moments are important to me, the transient nature of places and capturing people in their environment in a flash".

Road To Kafue (oil on linen) by Emily Kirby

And although she has been painting since as long as she can remember, eventually graduating with a BTEC Art and Design Foundation from Brighton City College in 2004, it is only three years ago that she decided to take up art as a fulltime occupation. This was after she spent some time in the Omo Valley in Ethiopia.

“The locals in the valley are suffering from the effects of ‘over-tourism’. There is also a proposed Dam for construction that will see many of them displaced,” she says, “It triggered my thought pattern, and when I went back to the UK I began to honour people’s identity. I do not want people to lose their character I would like that to be preserved.”

Of late, however, Emily’s work is inspired by a series of road trips she has taken with her father through Zambia and Malawi and she currently finds the human figure as a fascinating object of expression.

Her work is on display until the end of May in a small but thoroughly absorbing solo exhibition entitled “Africa Revisited” at the Zebra Crossing Cafe in Lusaka. Here you can see specimens of her road trip series of paintings with titles such as “Road to Kafue” and "Unstopable Force”.

‘De fil en fibre’

By Andrew Mulenga

What do break dance, wire, Google Earth and paint have in common? De fil en fibre or loosely translated “Wire fibre” an exhibition by French artist Christiane Chaponnière, that is what.

A break-dancer  made of wire reduced to a just a
few elements of the body, the head, legs, and feet

Last week, Chaponnière displayed a series of paintings and miniature wire sculptures at the Alliance Francaise in Lusaka.

Walking into the exhibition space, particularly if one had not seen some of the publicity material prior to the show, the small sculptures looked like discarded, twisted old hang wires that used to belong in someone’s wardrobe and had now been strewn across some tables.

As for the paintings, at a glance they looked like non-objective, geometric abstract art, merely depicting square blobs of paint.

However, at closer examination, one discovers that the paintings were inspired by some African city plans including Lusaka. Besides every painting, was a tiny printout of a map from Google Earth, the virtual map and geographical information program originally developed by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that maps the Earth from satellite imagery.

As much as Chaponnière, copies the Google maps line for line, she adds her own unique touch of colour.

“Sometimes it’s the colours from my dreams, because I dream of places before I visit them. But most of the time I use the colour in relation to the character of the city, if I feel a city is warm and friendly, I use warm colours”, explained the artist last week, before she left for Cape Town to continue her tour of the continent.

Chaponnière explains her work during
her exhibition in Lusaka

She started her journey in Alexandria in Egypt, and hopes to end it in the Cape. She entered Zambia by means of the Tazara Railway line because she believes entering a country by road or rail gives one a closer experience to the realities of on ground than flying.

Nevertheless, a closer look at the ‘hang wires’ on the table during the exhibition revealed that the wires suggested the raw movement in hip-hop or break dance.

“In France I live near a place where a huge Hip-hop festival is held. Therefore, I always go there to watch the dancers. I take photos, and then draw just what I want to remember to translate the movement of the body,” said Chaponnière referring to the ‘wire dancers’ “All I do is interpreting just a few elements of the body. The head, legs, and the feet.  I try to make them very simple, just the expression of the line not all the features, no arms just the simple expression of movement.”

Her work is indeed something out of the ordinary and quite entertaining. Chaponnière graduated from the National School of Fine Arts Paris School and the Louvre in 1968. Professor sculpture in the School of Fine Arts of Algiers in the early 70s and subsequently taught at the French school in Singapore and Bangkok during the 80s. From 2000 to 2005, she carried out arts workshops with street children in Istanbul and Mexico.

When she is not globetrotting, she lives and works in Paris. 

Agnes’ ''Social Issues" condemns child, women abuse

...but has no qualms with polygamy

By Andrew Mulenga

Women and child abuse, polygamy and environmental awareness. A complex thread with which Livingston-based artist Agnes Buya Yombwe weaves a rich tapestry in an exhibition entitled Social Issues that is now showing at the Livingston Museum.

Police Commissioner, Southern Province Brenda Muntemba
with artist Agness Buya Yombwe at the openning of
her art exhibition at the Livingston Museum 

Officially opening  the exhibition as guest of honour last week, Commissioner of Police Southern Province, Brenda Muntemba says looking at the art work she could see the artist simply reaching out and saying abuse and gender based violence are wrong and should be stopped.

“You have to go beyond the pictures, what I like is that she is talking about things we are usually ashamed to talk about, things that we want to ignore and pretend do not occur or exist,” said Muntemba in an interview “But the exhibition itself goes beyond abuse because it challenges silence.”

Muntemba, a strong advocate of non-violence against women added that we are brought-up in a culture that says it is okay to suffer abuse as a woman.

Stop Women Abuse (mixed media)
75x60cm by Agness Yombwe

 “Sadly for us as police, one day she (the wife) will wake up on the wrong side of the bed and stab her abusive husband then for us the law will have to take its course regardless of the obvious abuse that was a build up to the final act. We therefore need more people like Agnes to come out and stop the silence.”

As Muntemba says, Agnes’ message is loud and clear, stop the abuse. However, what is thoroughly absorbing in her work is the playfulness with which she handles material on such complicated and serious matters like wife batter.

A typical example is a painting entitled “Stop Women Abuse”. It shows a woman in stitches with a disfigured face depicted in a rudimentary and playful manner. Agnes however explains the playfulness in some of her works.

“There is an inner-child that is released when I am working, it just jumps out. That is why I enjoy the times when I am working with children. I play; there is that freedom I am able to bring out emotions freely without worrying too much. Because the children themselves are sincere and true. “She explained after the opening night.

She also explained that she sees her work as a constant work in progress pointing at a work entitled Rythms of the Heart she said it is a painting that she had changed twice over the past two years.

“look at this work for instance at first it had tears painted down its face, this was a time when I was taking care of a relative who was admitted to a mental hospital. But I rubbed them off... when things improved, the patient became better, “she said.

Polygamy constantly pops up in her work, and when asked to explain, Agnes gives a somewhat controversial answer.

Polygamist (acrylic on canvas) 125 x 104
by Agness Buya Yombwe

“I’m Tumbuka by tribe, it’s in my family. One of my uncles has 14 wives. My own dad was once encouraged to get another wife after having too many daughters and no son. But he stood his ground and later had two sons and eight daughters”

“I can say I sometimes support polygamy, because if a man can be honest and sincere that he is not satisfied with one wife that is better than having several girlfriends.  It’s better that people know where he is if he doesn’t come home, if you see most of my work it is just one man and two women... it should never go beyond two women.”

Agnes needs no introduction on the Zambian art scene. She is the feminine half of the artistic couple Lawrence and Agnes, the duo set up shop in Livingstone opening WayiWayi Gallery and Studio after serving as teachers for over 10 years in Botswana. A painter, sculptor, printmaker, textile artist, administrator and jeweller. At 46, she is a mother of two teenagers who splits her time by also being a wife and running classes and workshops at the gallery.

She graduated from Evelyn Hone College in 1989 and has attended training in the US, Norway and the UK. She is viewed by many as being responsible for inspiring an entire generation of young female artists in her wake.

Her current exhibition could be best summed up in the words of “fellow artist and Lechwe Art Trust Chairperson Cynthia Zukas:

I was very lucky to be in Livingston so i can catch this wonderful exhibition by Agnes Yombwe. I’m so impressed, her work about the abuse of women and children are quite profound... and also her lighter works full of design and colour i really wish her every success.”