Everyone experiences good and bad memories of encounters in our lives. How we choose to remember them is what differentiates us. Musicians may compose a song, poets may jot down a poem while majority of the population will will have framed portraits as keepsakes.
Well, similar is the case of Gemini Vaghela, a contemporary visual artist based at Kuona Trust through her solo exhibition at The Souk Gallery in Karen that commenced on February 16.
The exhibition dubbed Reflection explores a series of 12 pieces of artwork that include an Installation, that explains Vaghela's dynamics of life and her anxiety into the world of visual art.
The illustrations explore a wave of changes that occurs in people and goes unrealized as most are never documented despite their importance.
Photography art has been exploited through generations, and with the diversification of technology, people are opting for other suitable ways through which they can keep their memories alive.
Her installation titled Capture your memories, explains her understanding of situations in life as she perceives them. It uses bottles with lids and photographic content as her subject. The three bottles used contain 12 original photographs presented on a transferred photographic paper. With the photographs appearing to be looped, she points out that is purposely done to show how human memories sometimes take a path of motion that can be figured out.
“Photographs are normally printed on large scale to be put on the walls. Mine are compressed and placed in bottles hence making one still appreciate the photographs even if they don't have wall space” she explains.
The installation is quite different from other exhibitions that are normally set up as part of the exhibition. In this instance, the three bottles can be moved as per the comfort of the artist. "No one needs to be a professional artist to set up such installation" she states.
Vaghela derives her source of inspiration from human feeling, something she is able to articulate through the exhibited paintings.
"Our memories can be shaped by effects, passion and even painful loss. The only way possible to remember these moments will be through paintings," she adds.
For instance, her favorite piece ‘Through the mill’ explores her current struggle as an artist in Kenya since she moved here from Australia. The figurative piece captures her struggle of a four-year journey and the frustrations of an artist stuck in a box while in search of her distinguished position within Kenya's visual art industry. This is also expressed through another artwork 'Within the City', which explains the irony that exists in Kenya corporate world as she tries to find employment.
Vaghela prefers using canvas as the medium for most of the paintings as it gives her freedom to incorporate other texture which will bring about a new imagination thus prompting the viewers mental imagination.
In regards to the fact that most of the art pieces are predominantly blue and yellow, Vaghela says its "a feature she attributes to her love for brighter colours for the purpose of expressions."
“I have always been a colorful person ever since my childhood.This explains why my art has always had such bright colours. Dark colors just pull me down and make me feel depressed” she adds.
The exhibition will run till February 29.