Artists create gems out of life's basic material

An ode to a carbon life is the esoteric name given to a recent exhibition of Kenyan art by two very different artists, Evans Ngure and Wallace Juma, at Alliance Francaise in Nairobi.

The one thing they had in common was their mutual fascination for material things (what they called ‘carbon life’) in their most elementary designs.

Juma’s focus of interest was to be found mainly at the microscopic level, where the forms of carbon life that sparked his artistic juices were found during his observation and study of minuscule cell life viewed through high-powered microscopes.

By contrast, Ngure’s concerns were and continue to be on a more macro-level in the sense that one doesn’t need a microscope to see Nairobi’s notorious garbage dumps.

Ngure tends to explore the one in Gikomba for lots of the ‘carbon life’ that he collects and recycles, creating artistic gems out of junk.

So, on the surface of things, the two men are very different, but if one reflects on their techniques and methods of working rather than the art materials that they use, one can see the way their art has more in common than initially understood.

“It’s the transformative power at work in what we both do in our art; It's what got us thinking about having a show together,” Ngure told the BDLife.

The big difference in their styles of self-expression is in the materials (or ‘carbon life’) that they employ. In Juma’s case, the carbon life could be any sort of cell type, possibly an amoeba or parasite, a malaria or tsetse cell, or even a cancer-causing virus.

Most likely, the effect of any one blood cell doesn’t interest Juma as much as its shape, colour, and the contour of its microscopic geography.

Juma told the BDLife during the exhibition that the cells inspired him to use his imagination to devise his version of abstract art. But there was also a semblance of realism in his reinterpretation of cells, which he mainly left ‘Untitled’.

Meanwhile, Ngure doesn’t get all the trash that he transforms from junk into quirky creatures, from Gikomba. He also scours auto junkyards and has suppliers who save otherwise useless items, especially for him.

In fact, Ngure is renowned for welcoming any and everyone’s ‘carbon life’ that they are about to give or throw away. He hoards all of these precious items which he eventually turns into creatures like his Monarch butterfly, his sharp-eyed ‘Silent hunter’ Owl or his marvellous Chameleon.

Ultimately, both artists take objects at their most reductive level, be they cells or bits of trash, and transform them into works of art. In one case, Ngure’s artworks are filled with amusing assortments of found objects, everything from keys, coins, and wires to assorted spare parts.

The spares assembled in Ngure’s latest sighting at Alliance Francaise come from even more diverse assemblances, including everything from auto-spares to computer mother-boards to copper wires derived from tires burned to generate more pollution and a few pennies for people looking for survival strategies irrespective of the clean air that they pollute.

But where Ngure creates intriguing creatures that are easy to take home and put up on one’s walls or hang from the rafters, Juma’s pen and ink interpretations of microscopic cells are darker and more disturbing. Turns out, Juma had told me only half his story which involves his experimentation with Smoke Art.

In this, he is working with more microscopic elements which he generates when he burns another kind of found object. “He finds old billboard canvases which he burns until all that is left is sturdy homemade canvas. That is what he uses while developing another genre of painting called 'Smoke Art’.

Today, we understand that fine art need not be beautiful to be considered art. Take the British painter Francis Bacon who is renowned for creating works that are raw unsettling, and not beautiful. He is acclaimed for the ugliness of his art.

I would place Juma’s current works in that class of art. They are unsettling, yet each one has a story to tell, be it about the life of a parasite, amoeba, or life-threatening virus.

In contrast, Ngure has been consistent in his ingenuity and quirky imagination, finding ways to create clever semblances of living creatures. For instance, his ‘Silent Hunter’ Owl is one of the most magnificent works in this show.

His owl is also a bit scary as his eyes look penetrating, which is appropriate since owls’ vision is said to be sharpest and most lethal in the silence of late night.

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