Matter of Record: Peterson Kamwathi’s Harvest

International Thu 28-10-2010

Matter of Record: Peterson Kamwathi’s Harvest
By Elsbeth Joyce Court

The title of this exhibition ...Matter of Record... indicates that witness is at the core of Peterson Kamwathi’s practice.

Having both symbolic and graphic elegance, his large-scale serial works Constitutional Bulls, Sitting Allowance, Queues, represent in various ways the efforts of a patient, still hopeful people who seek to modify the nation-state of Kenya from its post-colonial condition.

Peterson-Kamwathi-Untitled-Sugarlift-print

^{Untitled | Sugarlift-print | 36 X 32.5 cms | 2010}

...Matter of Record... also provides the occasion to take stock of the first decade (its second half) of the artist’s career, including his prodigious output during a Guest Residency at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam earlier this year.

Kamwathi writes, “… practicing in cosmopolitan Nairobi I am continually confronted by my country’s political and social dynamics. … I am reacting to what I experience as a human being standing in my nation’s political, social, and economic river – it’s important to look around because that is the only way to know where one stands.

My expression is stimulated not only by the complexities of Kenya’s national politics but also by the successes contained therein. I am interested in how this complexity impacts on ordinary citizens…”.

This plentiful harvest of drawings, intaglio and relief prints reveals a visionary art, which differs from the mostly existential representations of dissent in Kenya such as newsprint cartoons and clichéd pictures.

Peterson Kamwathi Untitled Woodcut plate

^{Untitled | Woodcut plate | 89 X 122cm | 2010}

Alternatively, Kamwathi has created “his own version of icons” for the nation’s ongoing process of political democratisation. He has “tried to represent the various camps… by using symbols which have general recognition”.

The symbols that he selected have accessibility and authority; they operate above the fray in that they do not take sides or incite violence. His iconography comprises indigenous cattle with a hump which in Kenya signifies traditional or family wealth, herein the nation’s wealth; the ballot box which globally, signifies democracy by rule of law: the queue which in Kenya, signifies “limited resources” in addition to patient waiting and, most recently, the clove which in east Africa, signifies Zanzibar’s trade in spices and slaves.

Kamwathi extended the reference of the iconic bull to cover the 2002-3 Constitutional Conference which met in a large performance venue known as the Bomas of Kenya. Thus, the drafting of that power-sharing constitution became known as the “Bomas Process” (in Swahili, boma refers both to a cattle enclosure and administrative offices).

The then Government offered the public an altered form of the Bomas’ Draft, which when put to a national Referendum was roundly defeated and resulted in a frustrating stalemate. These events set Kamwathi to devise his epic Constitutional Bull Series (2005-08) of twelve woodcut blocks which were executed in large scale to bring attention to his concerns.

Peterson Kamwathi woodcut print bull

^{Bull | Woodcut print 1 of 2 | 26 x 21 cms | 2005}

The outline of each bull is in filled with a distinct motif, for instance, the Ndizi bull with bananas, the referendum’s sign for ‘yes’; the Amani bull with doves, the international icon for peace.

Similarly, with his Amsterdam colour-reduction woodcuts: Kamwathi covered the entire surface of Voters’ Queue with a jumble of densely packed, small ballot boxes by a method that resembles relief carving. By cutting deeply and with great skill into the block, the artist superimposed the boxes upon six figures in a voters’ queue, leaving them in outline.

The figures are overwhelmed by ballot boxes, suggesting a stalemate of icons! Nonetheless, the men who stand metaphorically for the electorate are depicted in a larger scale than the riot of boxes, and size indicates importance. Herein, the importance is the voters’ perseverance in face of bungled elections, whether ignored (2005) or corrupted (2007).

The repetition and dense arrangement of so many ballot boxes raises the issue of election fraud, inverting the ballot icon to indicate corruption of the electoral process. This was the case at all levels in the 2007 General Election, stated unequivocally in the concluding words of the Independent Review Commission of Inquiry, “the process was perverted at the polling stage and the recorded and reported results were so inaccurate as to render any reasonably accurate conclusion impossible” [p 10, 2008 IREC Report].

Queue Series, Artist-Proof, Peterson Kamwathi

^{Queue Series | Artist Proof 1 of 1 | 89 X 122 cms | 2010}

Such findings support Kamwathi’s decision to locate his work above the fray of partisan politics. In this instance, his imagery “references general voter queues, but was inspired by the idea of referenda. It was created just before the recent Constitutional Referendum”.

That fact altered my perception with regard to his intention: why had he so vigorously cut so many boxes? With faith in the future, the enactment of each ballot box can be taken as a wish or prayer to direct positive energy toward that Referendum. With a new Electoral Commission in place and popular will for Constitutional reform, voters by 66% did approve the compromise draft in a “free and fair election”. Thus, the nation-state Kenya has had a fresh start, which offers Peterson Kamwathi new scope for his witness and, the possibility of new destinations for his Queues.

Kamwathi writes, “Technique is important because it serves as the crucial point of entry to the artist’s idea /concept. “I have a deep interest in printmaking because of its indirectness and to an extent its perceived rigidity in technique and expression; I am also attracted to the medium’s history in religious, social and political advocacy.

“In a conversation with Tapfuma Gutsa, [Zimbabwean sculptor, when on a Residency at Kuona Trust], he encouraged me to ‘look for Bruce’. Nigerian artist Bruce Onabrakpeya is one of the senior, most influential artists in Africa. Part of his practice involves experimental printmaking in which he has explored new dimensions of the media.

'I have a passion for printmaking processes. I interpreted Tapfuma’s statement as not only making the physical journey to visit Bruce’s studio but also as a challenge to continually redefine my creative boundaries. I am still ‘looking for Bruce’.“

Bull, Woodcut Print by Peterson Kamwathi

^{Bull | Woodcut Print | 2008}

The second distinguishing feature of Kamwathi’s vision is his deep commitment to the medium of printmaking as integral to his practice, as he explains above. He is stimulated by the challenge of dealing with a dynamic medium that involves material and technical knowledge as well as basic skills in direct media. Indeed, the printmaking process itself is collaborative between the artist and his/her material. Another kind of collaboration occurs between printmakers while they produce their work, which is Kamwathi’s ongoing experience in the collective printmaking studios of Nairobi, where he first learned techniques and is now teaching them to the upcoming generation.

The main characteristic which printmaking shares is the transfer of a treated form: an image to another surface, usually paper.

The procedure of transfer/transformation defines the medium as ‘indirect’ in that the outcome, the print, is not controlled by the maker – it is always a surprise. South African scholars posit the essential concept of transfer associated with printmaking offers a particularly apt metaphor for the transfer of power from a constricted political form to the inclusiveness of majority rule (p 3, P Hobbs and E Rankin). They also state that printmaking’s historical links to industrial processes alleviate the elitist connotation inherent in fine arts.

Indeed, as Kamwathi observes, prints have played an activist role in cultural and political discourse for centuries; this motivates him to investigate the history of printmaking, particularly with reference to African history. Kamwathi is particularly alert to experimental projects that involve printmaking; this is why he nudges himself with the refrain “Look for Bruce” which he does in books and via the internet.

During the first decade of his professional career, Kamwathi has demonstrated his ability to blend his commitment to society writ large with his own self-directed practice of highly original, socially-implied art and arts advocacy. He shares art with society though teaching, curating, collaborations and conversations, for him art is a way of living. In this, he is exemplary of his ‘00’s generation age set who together are re-imagining their society and building a new and better nation for all Kenyans.

Kamwathi writes, “Conversations for me have always been a constant - highlights of exchanges I have been fortunate to take part in, both in Kenya and abroad. I find it interesting to listen to people, to share and engage in conversations with artists and the art world. Conversations are stimulants, in the sense that a thought or idea is malleable and can be toyed with, passed around, stretched, hammered etc. Rarely do I find conversations are definitive.”

How does this fine harvest fare in relation to the world history of art? Peterson Kamwathi’s oeuvre has resonance, makes associations, with very diverse works, which include the moment of cubism in early 20thc European painting.

Untitled Drawing by Peterson Kamwathi

^{Untitled | Indian ink and Acrylic on paper | 33X 36 cms | 2010}

Three fresh comparisons are the “most politically influential pictures ever made” (T Lubbock, 23.03.07 Independent): the Abolition poster printed from a woodcut Slave Ship Brookes (1789) which compares with the understated, diagrammatic imagery of the Queue series, Francisco Zubaran’s sensitive realistic painting of a bound lamb Agnus Dei - Lamb of God (1673) which compares with Kamwathi’s charcoal drawings of lost sheep and El Anatsui’s Men’s Cloth (2002), a scrumptious sewn metal wall sculpture which compares with the carved, angular energy of Kamwathi’s untitled woodcut with ballot boxes.

The capacity of Kamwathi’s work to converse across time and with art created in such a wide range of societies gives insight into the scope of his talent and speaks well for his capacity to engage artistically with the most challenging problem of the world, Kenya and ordinary people - which he identifies as Peace_Amani.

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