Dream . Challenge . Succeed, is neither a complete show of mastery nor a boast of accomplishment. This solo show, held at my alma mater, is a humble evaluation of progress on a hazardous journey that has chosen me. Some would say it is indulgent and crazy, this move from media slavery into true artistry, but I have no choice but to make real the art in my dreams and this exhibition is an attempt to carve my intention to meet the challenges on the road ahead. As a student at StAD, UON, I participated in the TERRANOVA project and took on Metal Sculpture. I started fusing my Illustration projects with sculpture and exploring new materials, giving substance to my ideals, testing the power of art to communicate political, social and emotional reactions of the world around me. This choice – to really inhabit the life of an artist - is to walk a rough and unpredictable path, with many moments of joy but many more of hardship that will scour the limits of endurance, as the road I have chosen shows me daily how relentlessly far I still have to go. The works showcased here document my progress as an artist discovering and exploring new media and ideas. More crucially they express the gut-felt frustrations and the challenges that mark my personal struggles to survive, to stay true to myself, my mentors and my city, to continue somehow to see beauty and to talk truth to power, and to shine into the darkness that everyone lives in. After leaving campus I worked for a bank and later set up a graphic design business and somehow I held it together and was even successful, but it was not easy. The need to live a more authentic life was a shadow over every long day of surviving Nairobi. What is most difficult, as an ambitious and restless young artist, is submitting to the sensible routines and the concrete material structures of reality, the real need to eat, and buy air time, and do the right things. It helps to be mad when you are an artist. I was fortunate enough to find a mentor, a man some would say is Kenya’s most perfectly qualified artist in madness. Kota Otieno is one of the two founders of Kibera’s Maasai Mbili Art Centre. I also considered him one of Africa’s finest contemporary artists. In October last year I stopped turning up at my downtown office and started showing up at the KUONA TRUST to assist, work with and learn from Kota. “The Professor” gave me basic training in contemporary art. This set me up for challenges much greater than showing up at the office, which ultimately put me on the path towards this collection of work, which shows his influence and benefits from his tutelage. The works in this collection have an unfinished quality, which is apt, as this is just the beginning. In moments of rest and reflection, like the space afforded by this exhibition, success is bound to be realised with both joy and fear. I have discovered through this process that the artist and his art are one, inseparable entity that will live or die on the strength of the truth they tell. Kiptoo Tarus
Posted on: Thu, 13 Jun 2013 17:36:42 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015