Cyrus Kabiru Presents: The C-STUNNERS

Kenya Thu 17-06-2010

Cyrus Kabiru Presents: The C-STUNNERS
By AfricanColours.com

C-STUNNERS | Photos Andrew Njoroge

Artist Statement:

I call them the C-STUNNERS©. The original idea was inspired by memories of my father's childhood where he dropped his glasses by accident and a lorry which by chance happened to be fatefully passing by ran over them, shattering them completely. It goes without saying that he received a very thorough beating from my grandfather. From that day on my father hated glasses.

I admired sun-glasses though, but wearing them was an impossibility because of my father's attitude towards them and I thus decided that when I grew up I would pick up from where the lorry left off.

Many of my friends despised me as I continued nurturing that dream, along with the additional name calling while being told that it was all nonsense. The argument was that it was a strange way of art.What they never knew was that this was my dream and I had made it my hobby as well.

Now all grown up this dream has come to pass and now I have my own eyewear line which I call THE C-STUNNERS. I have realized the dream and as my grandfather once said “When you truly dream a dream of your lifetime, never go back to sleep” and I, well, I am neither relenting nor dozing back to sleep.

C-Stunners have rocked the regional media and more so the tastes and imagination of art lovers with local television stations having interviews and discussions about them. The press have had columns and pages dedicated to them. My dream is to make them the classic choice of even aliens, who are beyond the international levels. I have been arrested once for almost 8 hours because of wearing them. For now, the sky is the limit.

So join us as we reveal to you THE C-STUNNERS - CYRUS KABIRU

C-STUNNERS | Photo By Andrew Njoroge

C-Stunners Installation
Hosted by: Kuona Trust Center For Visual Arts
Date: 30th June 2010 – 7th July 2010
Opening night: 6PM-9PM. Other days 9AM-5PM
Artists: Cyrus Kabiru
Featuring: Sylvia N. Gichia & George Ndagu

Cyrus Kabiru

Cyrus Nganga C-STUNNERS idea was conceived in 2009. He is seen here wearing one of the first pair of C- STUNNERS

Looking For The Way Up
Article By Frank Whalley | The East African
7th September 2009

Birds, a lumbering Tortoise, one giraffe and even a life size crocodile — all made of flattened bottle tops painstakingly hammered at then wired together by Cyrus Kabiru. It has brought him some success; even a measure of local fame.

And now the artist is bent on making a spectacle of himself.

Cyrus Nganga

Cyrus Kabiru | Photo By Shira

For in a mixed show at Nairobi ’s Kuona Trust, Kabiru presents nine pairs of glasses arranged on racks, as though in an optician’s shop. They are spectacles, but not as we know them, Spock.

Each is made of wire twisted into shape and supporting lenses, variously, of pierced sheet copper or steel, slotted convex metal, mesh, and roundels left over from some fabrication process. All are decorated with metal slugs and strips and, occasionally, with beads.

All wildly inventive: All huge fun.

C-STUNNERS | Photo By Andrew Njoroge

And that for Kabiru was the reason for making them. He has been making specs for most of his 24 years, starting at the age of three when he liked a pair of real glasses worn by a playmate near his home in Korogocho and decided to make his own from a length of scrap copper wire.

The fascination eventually became for him an entry into art. Self-taught, he earned himself a niche in the local art scene as the Birdman of Nairobi.

Cyrus Kabiru | Photo By Shira

His handsome and often lifesize bottle top birds (made mostly from Fanta and Tusker tops) grace many a gallery and, as he puts it, pay his rent and put food on the table.

A small one takes him a day to complete: A big one can take him up to a month.

Cyrus Kabiru | Photo By Shira

They have a perkiness that is very appealing, hinting at an indomitable spirit.

And the glasses? Kabiru claims they are just for fun. “I showed one or two pairs and people liked them so I thought I would put on a proper show of them to make people happy,” he told me.

Cyrus Kabiru | Photo By Shira

I wrote “claims” because the spectacles are proving popular in the marketplace as well. One American woman has just ordered 10 pairs to give to her friends back home

C Stunners on youtube

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Related Links

Cyrus Kabiru Portfolio

ExtraImaginary Interview with Cyrus Kabiru

Your Comments

JEYFREEE: JAMBOOOO I OWN 2 PAIR !!!!!!!! I HEART MY FRIEND CYRUS ALL THE WAY OVER HERE IN AMERICA HAD A PLEASURE OF WORKING WITH HIM WHILE I WORKED OUT IN AFRICA FOR MY ART SHOW !!!!!!!

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