Kempinski hosts local artists working for upcoming auction

What you need to know:

All this week, the hotel is teaming up with the Kenyan art centre, Kuona Trust, to host more than a dozen local artists who are painting and sculpting all over the hotel, enabling them to interact with hotel guests and staff.
Titled ‘Wasanii Jukwaani, (a Swahili term meaning Artists on Stage), the joint project will ideally turn into an annual event.

Kempinski is a well-established European brand of five-star hotels that was first established in Germany in 1897.

Today its reputation is global as it has got top hotels on practically every continent on the globe.

The Villa Rosa Kempinski only came to Kenya in 2013 but in the past three years, its solid reputation has attracted a whole stream of international celebrities and stars including Heads of State like Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Paul Kagame, Jakaya Kiketwe, Goodluck Jonathan and many others.

The hotel chain prides itself on its five-star service, cuisine, architecture and interior designs.

In fact, the only complaint I have ever heard about the Villa Rosa Kempinski is that it’s doesn’t give a hint of being situated in Kenya or east Africa.

It has had only one Kenyan’s painting - a piece by Peter Elungat - but even that one, while being beautiful also feels more European than African in its imagery, use of colour and western notions of beauty and elegance.

But all this week, the hotel is teaming up with the Kenyan art centre, Kuona Trust, to host more than a dozen local artists who are painting and sculpting all over the hotel, enabling them to interact with hotel guests and staff and illustrating just how vibrant the Kenyan art scene truly is.

Titled ‘Wasanii Jukwaani, (a Swahili term meaning Artists on Stage), the joint project will ideally turn into an annual event.

Currently, it is a five-day joint project where one can find local artists working on every floor of the hotel in open lobbies, lounges and other public spaces where both painters and sculptors are hard at work in preparation for the art auction to be held in Kempinski’s Grand Ballroom this coming Saturday night on April 30th from 6 p.m.

The Grand Ballroom has for the past three years been the site where the Circle Art Gallery has held its annual East African Art Auction which has been highly successful.

The artists who have been selected by Kuona to be part of the Wasanii Jukwaani project include artists based at various art centres around Nairobi and Kisumu, such as Kuona Trust itself (Jessica Atieno and Kepha Mosoti), Brush Tu Art Studio (Boniface Maina), Dust Depo Studios (Clavers Odhiambo), Wajukuu Art Project (Shabu Mwangi and Joseph Waweru) and Maasai Mbili Arts Collective (Kevin Irungo aka Kevo Stero).

Others are independent with most of them working largely out of their home studios (Samuel Githui, Joseph Weche, Colllins Okello, Handerson Kiruri and James Njoroge).

Friends of Kenyan artists and fans of the contemporary local art scene are encouraged to come see the artists at work all week and especially to attend the auction Saturday night. Proceeds from the auction will partially go to Wild Aid for Elephant Conservation (20 per cent) as a donation.

Fifty per cent will go to artists themselves while the remainder will go to Kuona Trust (15 per cent) and the Hotel (15 per cent) to cover the cost of art materials that were bought for the artists to work with this week.

The materials included everything from acrylic paints and pastels, brushes, stretched canvases, charcoal, collage materials and even mahogany wood.