David Thuku: Artist on the Move showing at Red Hill Gallery
CONSUMERISM
CRITIQUED AS ART
By
Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted May 1, 2018
Consumerism
isn’t a topic most Kenyans give a second thought. Yet that’s a bit ironic given
we are first- class consumers, especially when it comes to shopping for items
like cell phones which virtually everyone wants to own.
We consume
second-hand clothes, flat-screen TVs and all kinds of gadgets. Yet most of us
rarely think about how those items affect us or our psyche. How do they make us
think about ourselves? Can any one of those items change the way we see
ourselves and the world around us?
David Thuku
seems to think they do. In fact, he’s created an entire exhibition exploring
the notion that items which we buy (or acquire by some means) affect not just
the way we think; they affect our whole identity.
‘Barcode –
The Layer in Between’ is Thuku’s first one-man exhibition at Red Hill Gallery
but it may not be his last, given the expansive turnout of Kenyan art lovers
who came all the way to Limuru (almost) just to see his show.
One of
Kenya’s most progressive artists, Thuku has been experimenting with art
materials, forms, genres and concepts even before he went to Buru Buru
Institute of Fine Art where he majored in painting.
“In high
school we were making murals together,” said Bernard Mugambi, one of Thuku’s
longtime friends who came for the first time to Red Hill for the opening last
Sunday afternoon.
Both Mugambi
and Thuku went to BIFA, only his friend stuck with graphic design while Thuku
took the leap and chose to risk everything by becoming a fine artist.
It was while
painting backdrops for Drama Festival school productions that he began
collaborating with Boniface Maina and Michael Musyoka, a friendship which led
to their establishing Brush tu Art Artists Collective in 2013.
Since then, Brush
tu has grown by leaps and bounds, and so has Thuku. He’s still an alumni of the
collective, but he’s moved into solo studios, first at Kuona Artists Collective,
now at Kobo Trust where he’s not only created artwork for Villa Nova Kempinski
Hotel. He’s participated in exhibitions everywhere from New York and London to
Paris.
Every step
of the way, Thuku’s come up with new techniques, concepts and even genres. In
the Kempinski, he created an intricate chandelier. At The Attic Art Space earlier
this year, he created a series of prints portraying a man in dynamic motion,
rather like the artist himself.
And in ‘Barcode
– The Layer in Between’, he’s created graphic collages which are layered with
color washes and rubbings and paper cut-outs shaped as human silhouettes and
boxes representing sundry consumer items.
Almost half
of the collages contain a box replacing a human head, as if to say the item has
affected the consciousness and possibly even the identity of the consumer.
The other
half of his art (created on heavy-duty paper specially made in France) have
heads with eyes wide open and boxes held in hand, as if the item hasn’t had the
same profound effect on the consumer.
These are
subtle differences, but for Thuku, every symbol has significance and every
layer of the collage has been created, not by painting but either by washing
the heavy paper in watercolor or rubbing it over a metallic grid or using
masking fluid and paper-cutouts carefully glued into place.
Thuku isn’t
shy about trying out new techniques and in ‘Barcode’, his efforts reflect a
critical commentary on the way ‘things’ have taken over people’s lives,
transforming the way we see, feel, think and desire.
Meanwhile,
there’s a lot going on in the Nairobi art world currently. Adrian Nduma is
exhibiting at Polka Dot Gallery (even as his Show at The Talisman just closed).
Haji Chilongo’s art just went up at Banana Hill Art Gallery, and Moses Wyawanda’s
colorful paintings are on display from tomorrow at the United Nations
Recreation Centre for the whole of May
Michael
Musyoka and Lincoln Mwangi’s “Yearnings” exhibition continues at The Attic Art
Space.
And tomorrow,
5th May, ‘Conversation in Silence’, paintings by James Mbuthia
created in the past year will go on exhibition at One Off Gallery.
Finally,
this past Tuesday at the Nairobi Gallery (next to Nyayo House), ’50 Years of
Oshogbo Art’ is a glorious exhibition that just opened on Tuesday and is well
worth at trip to the Pioneer Artists Gallery inside the old PC’s brick building
now known as Nairobi Gallery.
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