Looking Awry still showing at the Tayali

By Andrew Mulenga

For the face-value viewer accustomed to the typical figurative and semi-abstract paintings that are routine during exhibitions at the Henry Tayali in the Lusaka showgrounds, Canadian mixed-media artist Wendy Dobereiner and Zambian sculptor John Mitti’s Looking Awry, an on-going duo exhibition is very unusual.

Ad 1 (mixed media)
by Wendy Dobereiner

Mitti’s work of course is all too familiar because his hand and use of highly polished hard woods particularly ebony is something that has not fallen too far from the tree of his mentor, the late celebrated sculptor and founder of Ulendo Art Studio in Lusaka’s Linda compound Friday Tembo who is considered by many – including the author – as the father of “reclaimed wood” sculpture in Zambia, well at least he is the first to have brought it into the gallery by any means.

On the other hand, Dobereiner’s work is a bit of a punch in the eye because as much as the images of painted advertisements such as “blocks for sale”, “barbershop” or “hair salon” are spread across the city of Lusaka, no one would really expect to see them within a gallery space, and many of us see the images as mundane things that we pass by without batting an eyelid. But Dobereiner uses them here as a means of expression, to manifest her visual encounter with the city of Lusaka as a western foreigner who is seeing things askew or awry as it were, thus the exhibition title Looking Awry.

Dobereiner has been in the country for about six months now; she is a guest lecturer in Fine Art at the Zambia Open University (ZAOU).

Ad 2 (mixed nedia)
by Wendy Dobereiner

“When I came here I couldn’t believe all the – hand painted – advertising, in Canada you just can’t put up advertisements anywhere. I was amazed and I researched folk art, because the paintings on the walls fascinated me, but this isn’t folk art. I started to research   some of the painters who do this, there is this huge desire to depict something”, she explained during a walkabout while hanging the work before the show opened last week.

“But so I found that since I’ve been here they have been replaced by photographs or vinyl I really thought it was a shame that you will lose some of these quite interesting graphics they are not folk art, but they are done from a passion of trying to depict something”, she said struggling to define or rather categorize the unique work.

Surely most of the images are from barbershops and salons and it is true quite a number of these are disappearing and being replaced with vinyl and photos with large format printing becoming cheaper. But Dobereiner’s observation is no new thing.

In a 2010 interview (Sign-writers Vs digitally produced billboards, Weekend Post, Friday July 23 2010),  Wesley Chongo a prominent sign-writer who was handed down the skill by his father and had been practicing for 13 years said “But even with computers we haven’t lost some clients because they know that one of my works can last for up to 10 years, whereas the computer stuff is quick to fade”.

Cornered (mixed media) by Wendy Dobereiner

Chongo may have had his point back then, because four years down the line industries such as the apparently booming and rapidly mushrooming drilling companies that line Lusaka’s Great East Road for instance prefer the large advertisements of their Ashok Leyland drilling trucks to be painted rather that printed on the walls. One can even sense some competition here on who can render the most accurate depiction of a truck down to its finest detail.

Nevertheless, Dobereiner has apparently immortalized some signwriting by using them in collage with her own formula of plaster and Cobra wax on canvas.

When asked about her thoughts on how she really felt about the diminishing number of painted signs and advertisements in certain areas, she said she thought it was a huge loss; she is convinced that a rich part of Zambian visual culture is dying.

Out of The Maize (mixed media)
by Wendy Dobereiner

But in Looking Awry she does not just concentrate on the signage of Lusaka as a concept for her visual encounter with the city or with Zambia. In one of her pieces -- actually one that stands out -- she grapples with the concept of a melting pot culture, a blending of cultures using femininity to drive the point home. Here she appears to be sampling from her roots in feminism, a movement in art that sees the production of overtly feminist artworks that dates from the late 1960s onwards. Entitled Out Of The Maize, this work is a curious collage of female body parts; legs, torso, abdomen, among the focal points of the artwork is a pubis and an urn or vase that appears to be sprouting female eyes of all races.

For this particular exhibition Dobereiner decided to display her work alongside that of Miti because she felt his work too embodied Lusaka from a local perspective.

Portrait (mixed media) by Wendy Dobereiner

“John is also dealing with his view of Lusaka, the only thing is I don’t come from Lusaka and John does. I can’t really speak to it but its local, and a lot of my stuff is about local,” she said.

Apart from ZAOU, she has also taught at the University of Columbia, the University of Alberta and the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design. She has also been the recipient of at least five academic awards and has numerous transcontinental gallery exhibitions. On the other hand the closest Miti has been to any semblance of academic training is the studio apprenticeship from his earlier mentioned mentor. He is currently working alongside Dobereiner at her Ibex Hill studio with his former Ulendo Studios stable mate Rabson Phiri. Read about Miti’s profile and experience in this exhibition soon. 

Mansa-based artist gets Canada invite

By Andrew Mulenga

Mansa-based artist Aubrey Chali has been selected to attend the 2014 version of the International Symposium of Painting and Sculpture in the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean in Quebec, Canada.

Cooking (acrylic on canvas) by Aubrey Chali

Excited, Chali has already confirmed participation and he is expected to be in Canada between the 19^th and 22nd of June.

The symposium includes workspace for the artists to produce up to three works and to have them sold at a 30 per cent commission which goes to the symposium organisers, however, Chali will also receive a stipend of $700 (seven hundred Canadian dollars).

He learned about the symposium through some foreign friends he made during the Insaka International Artists Workshop in Livingstone that was held during the UNWTO where he also exhibited in the Kamulanga show at the Livingstone Museum.

Washing dishes (acrylic on canvas)
by Aubrey Chali

“I will gain International exposure, connections, exchange of artistic skills and ideas and of course recognition,” says Chali a 36-year-old artist who insists that he earns a living solely by producing art “Honestly speaking as a self-taught freelance artist I feel and believe that, whatever I will learn in the symposium definitely will be applied in my art career progression and advancement, and of course it will be very beneficial to my friends in art as well as Luapula Visual Arts Council in general”.

This will be his first time abroad and he is excited by the facilities he expects to find in Canada, he says there are no art facilities in Mansa, and the going is tough.

“This is when the Government has put up our first ever Cultural Village in Mansa and of course Luapula Province as a whole, through the office of the Provincial Cultural Affairs Officer, otherwise it is still a work in progress,” he says.

“The only buyers we have in Mansa are from the American Peace Corps. Apart from them, there are none. I’m sorry to say this, people in Mansa do not appreciate the works of art, only a few and these people, are coming to work in Mansa from outside.”

He did however enjoy the opportunity of creating commissioned art works in 20 schools in Mansa, Milenge and Nchelenge Districts of Luapula Province for Africare International and the UNICEF. These were murals on water and sanitation and it was actually a sensitization project on hand washing, hygiene and boiling of drinking water.

Chali’s work is easily recognisable; he has managed to develop his own unique style which from a distance resembles an applique technique which is very similar to cloth in appearance.

“My art is a research on discovering and developing what I call linism. I happened to see sense in lines on the canvas and I realized that, this style of painting was in my blood from its beauty and expressive power. My painted lines and abstracted forms become my visual representation of my conversations and my inner most feelings,”

Drinkers drinking (acrylic on canvas)
by Aubrey Chali

he says.

He insists that now he surely understands that, lines and colours have specific spiritual truth. He applies linear brush strokes to convey a spiritual power and imagination using various colours for an expressive, symbolic meaning of his paintings.

“As I am growing and advancing with this linism, I am realizing and understanding that, art is a global language to communicate my inner most feelings on the canvas to other people. Generally speaking, art is a global tool for social, cultural and artistic gathering which unites people from all walks of life.”

He says art fills him with a sense of accomplishment and has proven a most amenable vehicle for translating his inner vision to outer reality, he paints from the inside out and enjoys the responsibilities art promotion entails; the reward he says is being part of a continuum of creativity. 

“I am a lover of my traditional way of life which is usually depicted in my paintings; I mainly produce paintings reflecting much of my traditional roots and a series of social subjects in my homeland,” says the 2010 Ngoma Awards finalist in the Akwila Simpasa category for the best upcoming artist.

Chali - The only buyers we have in Mansa
are from the American Peace Corps

“I paint people in their environments because I am curious of where they have been, where they are and where they hope to go in life. My subject matter is about people’s daily routines and a comment on human nature”.

Since joining VAC in 2000 he has participated in several group exhibitions in and outside Mansa that include the Mutomboko Arts exhibition in Mwansabombwe – Kazembe,  a group art exhibition at Mansa Hotel, the Provincial Library, Mansa,  Kaole Guest House, Mansa, Mansa Parish and the Copperbelt Visual Arts Council Gallery – Kitwe.

Farewell Baba Jakeh

By Andrew Mulenga

Late Finland-based Zambian artist Baba Jakeh Chande aka Romanus Chande was put to rest in a memorial service in Helsinki on Saturday 1^st March. He died at the age of 42 at the Hospice Terhokoti in Helsinki on Friday last week after a battle with a cancer that affected his liver.

Baba Jakeh died in Helsinki, Finland

Survived by a wife Riikka Soumi-Chande and two children, a seven-year-old girl and a five-year-old boy, he had been a resident of Helsinki since 2006 but travelled back and forth to Zambia for his art projects. He was an active Helsinki artist who participated in various exhibitions mostly as a performance artist, his most recent being in November 2013.

The artist’s widow Riikka confirmed that her late husband had cancer of the liver, as well as a tumour on the liver that was diagnosed in September 2013 and in an announcement to friends through social media in October last year, the late artist revealed that he had been diagnosed with hepatitis B, which he suspected to have had for a very long time and despite having gone through normal regular check-ups, it was never detected hence causing the liver cancer.

He revealed that the tumour on his liver had steadily been growing bigger until he developed symptoms such as stomach aches, headaches and nausea. He had been having regular-severe abdominal pains since early 2013 that led him to seek medical treatment and several examinations that gave him these results.

Endangered Species by Baba Jakeh,
a sculpture at the Zambezi Sun, Livingstone
(Photo -courtesy of Alice Cuningham)

Chande was a visual artist exceptionally skilful in taille directe  an approach to sculpture that is practically freestyle in which artists do not use a model or maquettes in front of them but work from memory. His forms were mainly organic in nature and during a two-man exhibition he held alongside close friend and Rockston Studios stable mate Ngamanya Banda at the Chit Chat Café, Lusaka in 2006 he explained: “The organic and most intense forms reveal my inner sensitivity and the harmony I find in the world around me”.

Working mainly in stone, he was in fact a subtractive sculptor removing material to create a finished work. His preferred form of subtractive sculpture was by far the most technically challenging due to the nature of stone medium which can be one of the most limiting in expression. However, anyone familiar with Chande’s work will attest that he was able to work marble with the agility of cloth. A good example would be Endangered Species, a sculpture on the lawns of the Zambezi Sun Hotel in Livingstone which is a popular photo spot for tourists.

 

Torso by Baba Jakeh

This stone sculpture features an organic form that rests on a high plinth. The lower part of the huge rock is extraordinarily hewn into a perfect curly spiral that leaves you wondering how it was achieved even with a grinding machine; this lower part can also be likened to the curled trunk of an elephant. The upper part of the sculpture takes on a broad leaf-like form which resembles an elephants ear and the works surface alternates from smoothed out areas to rough and raw ones. Speculatively speaking, Endangered Species is the sculpture of an elephants head, which is befitting of the part of Livingstone in which is located.

Chande also had the mischievous knack of creating solid female torsos that would also have a phallic semblance making them somewhat androgynous objects in terms of a representation of the male or the female. A good example is the grey marble torso he once showed at the Lusaka National Museum, in this work – as in many -- what could easily represent the scrotal sack could easily represent breasts making it a powerful representation of male and female fertility.

Awaiting revelation (performance in
 mutton cloth) by Baba Jakeh

There is no surprise that on the Helsinki art scene he was known more for his performance pieces than sculptures because this is a trait he had long developed before moving to Europe. While at the Rockston Studios in Lusaka, he was always staging spontaneous pieces at times during gallery exhibitions even though performance art has still not yet taken root as a form of creative expression in Zambia. He is particularly remembered for the performance piece Awaiting Revelation in which he stripped, covered himself in stretched mutton cloth from head to toe revealing only his waist-long dreadlocks.

In Gabriel Ellison’s book Art in Zambia, he was mentioned among the most promising artists that held the future of contemporary Zambian art in the palm of their hands; he was 33 years old at the time.

The loss of Chande may be best expressed through the compassionate words borrowed from close friend and one time stable mate Zenzele Chulu, the Visual Arts Council Vice chairman. In a eulogy targeted at close friends within the visual arts fraternity – which he agreed to share for publication after some convincing – a few excerpts from Chulu’s passionate account may sum up the life of the artist.

“From the humble dusty streets of Chilenje, Lusaka he lived in a highly privileged neighbourhood  with  other legendary artists who collectively formed the famous Rockston Studio ( 1985 ) guided by the strong scripture inscriptions “ Iron Sharpen Iron” , Baba Jakeh executed his duties whole heartedly to save and serve  Rockston in all his days.  David Baruch Chirwa, Lutanda Mwamba, Martin Chanda, Nezias Nyirenda , Zebby Muhango, Ngamanya Banda, David Lewanika, the list continues of those artists that Baba Jakeh shared his unique creative vision and how he influenced the drive for excellence,” states Chulu’s tribute to Chande in part.

“As artists we will cherish those unforgettable days, life was an art performance for Baba, he celebrated his days in the most artistic context you could ever imagine, his looks, the skill in carving Lusaka marble is legendary, a tough but soft spoken Baba lived up to his bill, with a long string of unrecorded recipes he created. We shared the music, the laughter, always discussing creative futuristic ideas for the benefit of our children and their children. Such was the Iron Sharpen Iron reality”.

Chulu discloses that his late colleague had a considerable amount of formal and academic exposure and attended the Mbile International Art workshops, Art Academy Without Walls Workshops, the introduction to Glass Forming at Open University, University of Art and Design, Helsinki and  the Etching and Printing course, London Print Studio (currently Global Print Studio).