Why artists' work must engage local audiences

 Michael Soi, painter and bag designer. (Courtesy)

Art is a medium that individual societies use to unpack, explore, express and affirm their values and cultural identity. It is integral therefore for not just Kenyan artistes, but artistes all over the globe to be keenly aware of the society and culture they belong to physically. After all, if you want to create work that has popular appeal both in the real and the digital pace, you must know both target audiences intimately, to spark their interest in your work.

Michael Soi, for example, is by far one of the most well-known artistes among Kenyans. Soi paints with a minimalist aesthetic, and most of the subjects in his paintings are rendered in an almost doodle-like fashion. The composition of his paintings, however, is deeply comical, as Soi primarily uses satire to comment on contemporary political goings-on in Kenya, and the subjects in his paintings are often engaged in farcical activities.

Part of what makes Soi's work endearing is that he is a keen observer of Kenyan socio-political issues. Though his work is undoubtedly satirical, it is also incredibly familiar to all of us who live and work in Kenya, and it depicts scenes from our collective lived experiences. In his 2013 exhibition entitled China Loves Africa, Soi exhibited paintings, which depicted his take on the close dealings between various African governments and the People's Republic of China. They were humorous renderings of African subjects and political leaders in compromising situations with Chinese subjects - Africa Union delegates sleeping on each other's shoulders behind a podium, a Chinese man at the centre of the podium behind a tag 'chairman' of the African Union.

This painting is a telling satire of the current state of affairs in Africa's geopolitics, as many African governments are characterised by corruption, incompetence, and sheer negligence. This may be a metaphor for the apathy and short-sightedness of African leaders, who allow their independent nations to become financially dependent on the infrastructural expertise of the Chinese to improve local infrastructure without investing in their capacity to perform these tasks.

Indeed, this alarm is pertinent and directly speaks to the contemporary concerns of Kenyans, as many are worried that "African countries are rapidly getting heavily indebted to China, these African countries will have no choice, but to resign to the dictates of China", according to Nigerian artiste and lecturer Chijioke Onuora.

Unchecked and unbridled government corruption, as well as the threat to our sovereignty by China's ever-pervasive role in funding local infrastructural initiatives, are the main political issues that concern Kenyans today, and citizens of many other independent, post-colonial African states.

In his research paper titled Reflections of Society in Art: Contributions of Michael Soi's Politics Paintings to Social-Political Debates in Africa, Chijioke Onuora cites British art consultant Daniel Gorman, who stated that; "political art, socially-engaged art, art activism is nothing new' because 'for as long as 'art' has existed, it has been 'socially-engaged". But one could argue that to be effectively engaged, art should be attuned to the experiences of everyday people.

Soi's work is effective and engaging because he keenly and authentically observes and satirises unambiguously the social realities of his fellow Kenyans. As a political commentator and an artiste, he keeps his finger on the pulse of local sentiment and the concerns of Kenyans in their contemporary localised culture and receives popularity and local engagement in return from his audience. He is also brave and is not afraid to portray what many of us are privately thinking out in the open, in public exhibitions of his paintings.

But his work is diverse in its subject matter, and including local politics, he focuses on other local socio-political issues such as materialism. In an interview for the Singleton Stories, Soi stated that he is interested in exploring 'commercial sex, intergenerational sex relationships, interracial relationships and the Nairobi nightlife' in his art; 'I had a particular interest in it because there is an aspect that I usually see a lot in these situations, which I refer to as the "economics of love".

Soi is above all a social commentator, exposing and highlighting issues he feels need to be tackled in Nairobi's public sphere through his work. He has developed a lucrative industry selling his copyrighted pieces on various apparel, such as tote bags, T-shirts and jackets. Soi's muses, which he paints onto this apparel are the women of urban Nairobi, manifested in a character Soi insists he 'created in my head'.