Pioneering painter now a proven talent

Tabitha wa Thuku is a pioneering Kenyan woman artist.

Granted, her timeline cannot compare to that of a Rosemary Karuga who was getting her university degree from Makerere University in the late 1950s. Or even Kenyans like Dr Elizabeth Orchardson-Mazrui, the country’s first female PhD or Elizabeth’s age-mate Magdelene Odundo, the first Kenyan woman to receive an OBE from the Queen of England, and both of whom came before Tabitha.

Giants

But those female giants only paved the way for one of the early female painters who has been hard at work since the 1980s.

Initially in training at Kenya Polytechnic studying fashion and fabric design, Tabitha was one of the first casualties of the flood of mitumba (second hand clothing) that came to Kenya and effectively drowned local textile industries and fashion designers who up to now can still be heard complaining about how cheap, ‘convenient’ second-hand clothes have practically ‘killed’ the Kenyan fashion industry.

Just recently, when KikoRomeo’s Ann McCreath was spearheading the World Fashion Day aimed at commemorating the death of over 1000 exploited textile workers in Bangladesh, she encouraged people to check labels to see where their clothes come from.

Colour

She wasn’t directly promoting the local fashion and textile industry, but she did aim to raise awareness of the fact that most textile workers all over the world work in ‘sweat shops’ under exploitative conditions just like those who died in Bangladesh.

In Tabitha’s case, her transition from textile design to fine art wasn’t difficult since she had always loved colour which is one of the more prominent features of her painting today.

Developing a rather dreamy, semi-abstract style, Tabitha has exhibited all over Nairobi – including Gallery Watatu, Nairobi National Museum, Village Market, Talisman restaurant, RaMoMa and Kuona Trust - as well as overseas where her one-woman exhibition in Milan was a rousing success, according to Italian art critics.

Her art is also in a number of permanent collections, both public and private. That includes the amazing collection in the Delta Building in Westlands, a corporate highrise that’s made a serious investment in contemporary Kenyan art.

She has also been a mentor to many up-and-coming Kenyan artists like Samuel Njuguna Njoroge and Robert Njoroge. She has also worked with Kenyan artists at both Kuona Trust and the GoDown Art Centre.

Semi-abstract

Her most recent one woman exhibition at the new Shifteye Gallery was classic Tabitha. Some critics may find her style ‘muddy’ as she blends her colours into semi-abstract forms that can be maddening if one wants to see something figurative and precise.

I prefer to see her work as playful, contemporary and Afro-modern in its feeling and content.

Tabitha has been working the last six months at Kuona Trust where she began experimenting with wood rather than oils on canvas. But she’s now back in her home studio in Westlands where she has most of her art and is happy to show it to visitors who have a passion for contemporary Kenyan art.