Eccentric Artist, Riotous Use Of Colour

Kenya Mon 14-05-2007

Eccentric Artist, Riotous Use Of Colour
By Njunguna Wakanyote

He lives alone and paints in a woody shrine that also serves as his home. He will hear none of your electric-lit, stone built modern homes and literally paints in the dark gloom of his cave-like-dwelling, which a passerby could easily mistake for a witch doctor's den.

I would not be surprised if told that his Ngecha village folks refer to him as a “muguruki wa icere” – a loose translation in Kikuyu (a local dialect) of a hopelessly nutty fellow;one who's sanity is questionable. But is Wanyu Brush, really stark raving mad?

He may have been named John Njenga at birth, yet he adamantly denies knowing who that is. The gray dread locked artist, now almost 60 years, rather prefers to be called Wanyu Brush. WANYU simply means “yours”. “I am yours, your brush.” He rejects, and remains defiant of the mainstream society, daring it to point an accusing finger at him.

If he is the village lunatic, he perhaps dares the villagers to laugh at him. But what sane villagers would stand at a market place and scorn loudly at their village mad man?

They are aware that this state of madness is a reflection of societal madness. When, therefore, we laugh at him the laughter boomerangs on us all so that we are laughing at ourselves. By throwing bucketfuls of riotous colours at the society, Brush is returning to the traditional role of an artist in Africa. He is carving the masks in which to perform our now demented ritual dances.

He is, indeed, not unlike the prophets of old raving at society to reform or forever dwell in the hell that he paints in amazingly bright colours. Watching the artist at work – he uses oil on canvas – is like a mirror reflecting the bedlam that our society has become: a society that litters the land with aborted foetuses. Wanyu Brush litters his canvases with these victims crying out for dear life.

Then there is the madness of mindless love and lovemaking, where men’s sexual organs are weapons and monstrous crocodiles, ing’ang’i literally unleashed upon our women folk.

These images dominate the artist’s paintings, although he does not bother to label them men’s “ing’ang’i”, but “my king’ang’i”- my crocodile. Little wonder then, most people- not just those faint hearted - find Wanyu’s images disturbing.

Their uneasiness is further accentuated by the image’s colour scheme and radiance. For a man who paints in the dark and gloom of an oil-lamp-lit hut in the womb of a canopy of trees and vines – or perhaps because of it – Wanyu’s paintings are pretty bright.

His yellows, greens, blues and purples are forever dancing to a maddening rhythm, whose pace is set by the pulsating strobes of whites. To help define his forms, Brush adds a spicy condiment of streaks of reds and browns, with a touch of black here and there.

The images also float in a centrifugal force of sorts, evoking a feeling of one floating in some living broth of life. Curiously, Wanyu does not stare at his canvas in the conventional way other artists do. Rather when at his elemental best, he gives his painting surface his back, and turns his face back to look at the canvas. Only when he sees his weird images does he take the few regal steps to make Wanyu's stone sculpturea mark on the canvas. It is a truly fascinating ritual to witness…

In a country where smooth talking artists largely reap success, Wanyu remains largely unappreciated by the buying clientele. He is abrasive and may easily rub his clients the wrong way – owing to his bluntness and non-cringing nature.

Gallery Watatu’s founder, the late Ruth Shaffner, who had nurtured her own “stable” of artists, found Wanyu and Charlie Sekano, a South African painter then based in Kenya– hard nuts to crack. But it is indisputable; Wanyu’s unbridled brand of art – harbours a treasure trove for serious art collectors.

Posted By: African Colours

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