Landscapes from Home, a group exhibition bringing together six Kenyan artists, runs from January 15 to 23 at the Africa Centre in London.
The exhibition features work by Coster Ojwang, Sheila Bayley, Viktart Mwangi, Andrew Crae, Doreen Mueni and Swift9 Graffiti to depict what home looks like.
Curated by Stephanie Chianda, a curator and medical doctor based in London, in collaboration with Asili Creatives, the show includes a collection of 25 works and is aimed at speaking to Africans in the diaspora who are starting to collect art from their home countries.
Coster Ojwang showcases some of his early figurative paintings of faces and village scenes based on his journey from Kisumu to Nairobi. This was also the time he met Chianda, who recently revisited and selected from this back series for the exhibition.
Working in acrylic on canvas to create landscapes, he speaks about creative freedom and resisting pressure to conform to trends.
“If you are doing something a particular way and the space is moving in a different direction, people say you are not progressive. When you choose to go on, you will find someone who wants to spend money on your art,” he says.
Though he has exhibited internationally before, this London showing is about his aim to share the beauty that Nairobi is immersed in. He will be present at the exhibition and is also scheduled to perform in London on January 14.
In this exhibition, Doreen Mueni’s abstract figurative works explore mental and emotional landscapes, portraying themes of identity, beauty, mental health, and injustice.
In her series The Weight of Absence, Mueni challenges femicide without showing violence, focusing instead on the humanity of her subjects. Around the faces of her subjects are webs that depict their psychological statuses, contrasting their beauty and the webs as their painful pasts.
Sheila Bayley’s artworks explore social landscape: the conversations within the home. Her series, The Mothering Kind, reflects on her journey as a mother and full-time artist, while an older work, They Are Watching, is also included in this exhibition.
Viktart Mwangi, widely known for large-scale murals, presents smaller works in ink and acrylic on canvas that depict ordinary scenes of Nairobi life in what Chianda describes as an afro-aspirational style. His work remains centred on people and urban experience.
Andrew Crae transforms the mundane into moments of beauty as he depicts Nairobi’s older trees and bright skies to remind viewers of where the city has come from. Swift9 Graffiti brings an Afro-fusion, futuristic feeling that ties street culture to fine art. They are artists whose work Chianda says she genuinely enjoys.
The idea for Landscapes from Home took form through Chianda’s experiences attending exhibitions in Kenya and abroad, and more specifically during a trip to Ghana in March last year. While taking friends through galleries, she saw how they engaged with artists and prices.
“They did not feel that the works were not of value, and they knew they could plan to afford them. There is an emerging culture of Africans appreciating and collecting their own art,” she says.
She wanted to create the same space for Kenyans and Africans living in the UK and introduce them to artists from their own homeland and feel proud to collect their work.
“When you talk about home, you talk about the places you hung out and the feeling you get. There is a lot of sense of missing home for diasporas, and so many things attached to our landscape. They want to retain a sense of it,” she says.