‘Art is a lie that brings us closer to the
truth’. It was the great Spanish painter Pablo Picasso who invoked this almost
a century ago. There was nothing
untruthful though about the artistic display on Thursday the 9th of
April as we, the art lovers, converged at the Casual Bite in Westlands in the
evening for an exhibition by Onyis Martin.
Onyis Martin describes his work as
conceptual. You draw a meaning from his work based on your own life
experiences. Beauty lying in the eye of the beholder kind of art. He uses mixed
media and his work has a 3D feel to it that helps to utilize not only the sense
of sight but also that of touch.
The beautiful paintings had the predominant imagery of a bicycle (creatively embossed on the canvas using stove wick), shadows and a single vertical wick at the centre of the canvas with a knot on the upper end.
I can try hard to paint a picture here of
what the multi-talented Onyis wishes to accomplish through his paintings but I
am well aware that I won’t do much justice to his well thought of and executed
medium. So allow me to quote a paragraph from his Biography
“Through his paintings, Onyis leads
us into his own cultural world, a world in which the sacred and the profane
constantly mingle, in which worship and domestic life are one and the same, in
which every gesture has a pre-established purpose and in which everything has a
meaning. Within that culture, everything is determined in advance; everything
that occurs in the present can be explained in terms of the past and has to be
ritualized so as to be integrated into everyday life, which is itself a ritual.
As we walk into his paintings, we have to look deep into our own souls for it
awakens sensations and feelings, which we, caught up as we are in an inhuman[e]
and artificial world, thought were lost forever.”
Well, imagine such poetic beauty collected
from contemporary subject matter and beautifully translated with paint on
canvas and, like a neurosurgeon on an operating table, you will have managed to
pick a piece of Onyis’s brain...
The evening was not short of networking
opportunities as the art lovers mingled freely with wine glasses in hand and
bitings laid out on every table. The new Director of the Italian Institute of
Culture, Ms Francesca Chiesa,graced the occasion in the company
of several other Italian art enthusiasts.
It is also only right to mention Luca Berardi,
who was the ‘oldest’ art lover of the evening at 11 years of age.
The young
man, himself an upcoming author and an animal rights crusader, was quite a
delight and already knows what he wants to do with his life. You can check him
out on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook as well as on www.yarhkenya.blogspot.com
Such a beautiful outing wouldn’t have been
complete without some music to our ears. As the guests settled down from the
exhibition, some poetry and music was in order.
First on stage to dispense a dose of poetic
justice was Mtheto Hara with a piece he had specifically written for Onyis’
exhibition.
He breathed more life to the paintings as only he can, then
quickly settled back to his traditional theme of choice: LOVE.
Then came the soft-spoken but powerful
Kelvin Kaesa who opened with an emotional and beautiful poetic tribute to the
Garissa Terror Victims. There was strength and healing power in that particular
performance.
Next was Winnie Kamau with four songs on
relationship hurdles and forgiveness. We were warned against being concerned much
with the speck in our brother’s eye at the expense of the log in our own before
we joined her in a rendition of the ever redeeming Redemption Song by Bob Marley.
Steve and Alfred of Yabadoo Kenya closed the entertainment chapter.
Their first song Lifestyle was all about what we want
while my favourite, Gaucho was about
this over-protective girlfriend. Bus Station
and Umenishika ka Gava are also part
of their creative production.
Two intensive hours of food for the body,
mind and soul were brought to a close with a word of appreciation from Giorgio
Berardi, the Project Manager at CEFA.
The whole evening was made a success
by facilitation from this wonderful institution that has endeavoured to give
training opportunities and exposure to artists from multiple disciplines
through a two-year journey. All the artists of the night are beneficiaries. The
project has the support of the European Union, the Ministry of Culture, Sports
and the Arts, the Italian Institute of Culture, Alliance Française, and Goethe Institute.
PHOTOS COURTESY OF Humphrey Odero www.oderophotoz.blogspot.com
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