A preview of Dickson Kaloki’s latest exhibition
It has been more than six months since Dickson Kaloki last showed his paintings in Nairobi at the Braeburn School. 2012 was a busy year for Kaloki with exhibitions at Que Pasa, Talisman, and the Art Launch in Cologne, which led to a follow-up exhibition in Berlin in February 2013. He is returning this month to Que Pasa to launch a new series incorporating different artistic styles.
Kaloki continues to explore slum structures using the charcoal effect, acrylic, and canvas. His latest works go beyond the classic mabati and timber houses, narrow corridors, and ubiquitous Kanaro River to explore the interaction between individuals in the slums, their environments, and the city of Nairobi.
There is a tension in these paintings, as urbanisation causes both slums and cities to expand, at times overflowing into each other. The grey area between a formal and informal structure is explored. The Nairobi skyline is present — at times familiar and at times forecasting a city of the not-so-distant future. As buildings take over slums and crowded informal settlements are traded for crowded apartments, Kaloki’s paintings question conventional narratives of progress and are wistful of the stories inside slum structures that we will lose.
We see bicycles and shadows, giving us signs of life without showing us too much. In other paintings such as One Direction, Kaloki paints people in an impersonal, faceless crowd. While visitors to Kaloki’s studio at Kuona Trust often refer to these people as soldiers, he explains: “It is a busy bridge. There is too much traffic — and it is going in only one direction. When you wake up in the morning, so early, you see these people. You know Kawangware? Some people are rushing, some are relaxed and talking, they are all moving in one direction.”
Kaloki stays close to his roots through several projects in Nairobi slums. He believes art is not just about creative expression but can also lead to economic empowerment. The Art for Life project in Mukuru Kayaba designed and led by Kaloki brings youth together weekly to practise different artistic mediums that correspond with work opportunities. Youth learn screen-printing and make tee shirts to display and eventually sell. Painting is co-taught by men who paint billboards as advertisements.
The title for the Que Pasa exhibition is The Stranger in Me, a reference to the feeling of disconnect between external perceptions and descriptions about the artist’s work and internal motivations and desires. In these newer works, Kaloki says he “allowed the charcoal to flow and saw what came out.”
The series also experiments with more than charcoal, adding layers of paper and printing to some paintings.
Kaloki will be showing a series of paintings of women in the front venue room, which experiment with a new and different style. The women paintings employ thick, bright brushstrokes and strong facial features. Like many artists who experiment with styles, Kaloki might have been branded by his slum series but he continues to investigate other aspects of himself and the world around him through different styles and subject matter. It is an artistic craving that cannot and should not be inhibited.
The Stranger in Me will run at Que Pasa from January 17 to February 5. Kaloki will then start preparing for a European tour lasting the second half of 2014 with stops in London, Barcelona, Moscow, and an exhibit and teaching stint in Cologne.