'I Do It Until I Get Bored or There is Nothing New in It'

Kenya Mon 01-11-2010

'I Do It Until I Get Bored or There is Nothing New in It'
Interview by Sam Hopkins

Sam Hopkins: So, something that interests me, as someone who works in loads of different media, without arguably mastering any of them, is that you have taken one idea and you’re really pushing it.

Peterson Kamwathi: Yes, until I get bored, or there is nothing new in it. It’s interesting because on one level there is always this temptation to be jumpy, to try this and this, but then I don’t know if it’s an issue of age. So now I think I realise, looking at something continuously, it has a very interesting dynamic because then something tends to reveal itself and changes... the details. What was a whole picture in the distance, what was blurry starts manifesting its details, and of course that brings in a new story, either confirming ideas and perceptions that you had, or invalidates them.

^{Peterson Waweru Kamwathi in his studio at Kuona Trust | 2010 |} ^{Image by Andrew Njoroge/ AfricanColours.com}

SH: Exactly, and you can only find that through the process of working through these ideas.

PK: Yes. I think on one level there is a monotony to this but then, like I say, what I realise about monotony [is] that there’s an element that when something is repetitive and there is a constant repetition, it kind of… I don’t know what they call it in music, but there’s a part whereby the very basic beat is one that constantly repeats itself and it acts as a linking thread. So what that does is that even if you want to go on a high note, there is always this constant. In jazz - I think it is the bass that acts like this.

SH: Yes, and you need that, this kind of core thematic, in order to see what the differences are. In fact it highlights them. When you repeat something and you have these core motifs that are repeated and repeated then that reveals the differences.

PK: What it does, you’re right, is that it highlights anything new that comes in. In the same way that black shows the true nature of a colour, so if you want to look at a colour, juxtapose it against black. So the thing about patterns, like I was saying previously, is that that repetition kind of throws people into a state that allows them to meditate, to kind of reflect on things. But it can be very monotonous. There are times actually when I get frustrated.

SH: So, for me, as someone who has kind of glanced over your shoulder over the last couple of years, it seems that when you started working big, you made a significant step in the development of your practice. Do you feel that as well or am I confusing different processes?

PK: It’s probably so. Let me say that there is actually a recognition that comes with the scale that I’ve worked with. First of all because it’s very hard to ignore something this big and also as because the quality of the image is black and white, and the paper is this big so there’s almost like a... I don’t know whether to call it a PR effect... not ‘PR,’ but there is a showbiz angle to it.

SH: It’s true; there is a kind of ‘wow’ factor.

PK: That’s the word! I mean on one level I think, I usually wonder, ‘am I deliberately doing that?’ But then I think that I started this with Sitting Allowance which was the first body of work that I did that way. The sheep series was four feet by four feet, which to me then, at that time, was really big, although now they are kind of small pieces. I think part of it was that I wanted to make a statement with Sitting Allowance.

Sitting allowance by Peterson Kamwathi

^{Part of the Sitting Allowance Series | 2009 | I}^{mage by Andrew Njoroge/ AfricanColours.com}

There was an element of anger at what was going on at the time and I wanted people to see how I was thinking. There was almost an advertising element where you put up the largest billboard so you can communicate to your audience. Just for the sake of communication, I guess. But then I think that I got comfortable working with this scale. So in a way now I struggle working small, whereby all the work that I’m doing small I consider to be studies or sketches for bigger work, even though I’d love to go smaller.

I think it takes another discipline. But then also an issue of working big is the fact that I’m trying to see how big can I work. And the question is, does it communicate? Does it come across? Does what I am trying to express reach across to whoever looks at what I am doing?

SH: It’s interesting what you say - that scale was kind of a function of the intention that you wanted to communicate. Because they are quite - I don’t want to say propaganda - but they are quite epic, something which is accentuated by this kind of bas relief form.

PK: It’s interesting that you talk of propaganda because also I think on one level one of the things that I have really enjoyed doing in printmaking is looking at its history.

Printmaking has had a propaganda history to it, in South America, in Medieval Europe, in Russia. But then also murals come in, and this is the closest I can come to creating a mural in my space; I don’t have a big studio. So I have an interest in media that have a social dimension to them and media which have been involved in social change, that have contributed to the social sphere, whether it’s educational, whether it’s propaganda, or whether it’s pure aesthetics... I’d love to make murals.

One of the things I was saying back in 2008 when I started Sitting Allowance is that I’d love to work on a surface where nobody can come and buy a piece. So it serves a function that you look at it but there’s no responsibility and expectation that you need to contribute anything other than just engage with it.

SH: So you’ve recently been away for a few months, and even though it is two months since you have returned you said that you are still arriving.

PK: I’m still arriving, but I think I needed to go. I didn’t realise that, and I was actually a bit hesitant because I thought, what am I going to do for four months? But then, I think I needed to leave. Because in the first place I think I was having a hard time evaluating what I had been working on since Sitting Allowance, even prior to Sitting Allowance, looking back and thinking ‘ok, what’s relevant? What’s not relevant? What do I feel is important to me and what is not important to me?’ So, there are things I would have done differently, if I had the chance to. But then also I was kind of developing future ideas and work and I’m thinking, ‘what am I reacting to at the moment?’ And of course queues are part of it.

Peterson Kamwathi, Queue Series , Artist Proof

^{Queue Series | Artist Proof | 2010 | Image by edcrossfineart.com}

SH: You have described a queue as a function of scarcity.

PK: Yes, it’s about limited resources. But then queues also, interestingly enough, are manifestations of inefficiency. But I mean they are still works in progress. Because at the end of the day, if I’m not careful - I don’t want to get caught up in this creative imagery of people standing in sequence.

SH: But the queues have taken a different turn.

PK: I had the idea of looking at queues in oppressive times, in terms of oppression. I was actually looking at queues as manifestations or tools for oppression and suppression. I was actually going back in time and looking at slave trains as manifested as a queue, because a slave train was a queue of people. And then also looking at what would be the contemporary peer to this, and I think one of the images is Guantanamo.

SH: That piece particularly struck me.

PK: Oh, the woodcuts! This is the very first piece that I did in Amsterdam. Basically Guantanamo, and I actually wanted to do one of the slave train but I chose not to because also I’m thinking, it’s also a very clichéd image.

SH: It’s true, it’s true, but there’s something about the decoration in the image that makes it a difficult to read image. It’s quite sombre.

PK: It’s a veil. I mean, I was talking about patterns.

SH: But also in terms of issues of audience and issues of context for the work, you move from what seems to be generated from quite a specific Kenyan social context. Looking at Matatu queues was one of the first impetuses, and then this expands to become a tool, a conceptual tool for looking at issues on a more global basis.

PK: That’s actually what’s happening now and I think part of it is a consequence of the time I spent away because then actually I realised that I can use this as a vessel that contains all these issues. Whereby everyone recognises that it’s not fun to be in a queue. Then realise it’s not fun to be a prisoner, it’s not fun to be a detainee in Guantanamo, it’s not fun to be a refugee and it’s not fun to be an ostracised minority.

Sam Hopkins is an artist and curator based in Nairobi.

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