Contemporary African Art Exhibition at Caton Merchant Gallery

Stella and I visited the local Caton Merchant Family Gallery in Manassas to see the multimedia art exhibits from African artists. The Mbari Institute for Contemporary African Art had organized the exhibition. Some of the artists were actually onsite to explain their art.

Issa Nyaphaga is a 41year old artist from Cameroon. He is from an artistic family and learnt art from his mother and other relatives at a very early age. As he grew up, he became a political activist and started using art to protest against the then current regime of Cameroon. He explained to us that a large population in Cameroon could not read or write and so he started publishing the news in the form of cartoons. His cartoons were a vehicle to communicate the actions of the government to the common person on the street. The government put Issa and other activists in jail where he was tortured and started painting his own hands to funnel his thoughts and emotions. He then had the good fortune of escaping from the prison and immigrating to the first country that gave him a visa and that was France.

In France, Issa started painting on the themes of political activism, especially remembering his days in the prison. The two paintings he showcased were quite unique. “Buena Vista Rumba Club” and “The spirit of fight” . Both were created using mixed media photos, acrylic paint, and white ink. They had photos of famous political figures from all around the world, and interlaced with these photos were his painted hands with horizontal lines and dots. The lines signified the interconnections between people and dots depicted the numbers of people. There were writings both in English and African symbols and the writing was about how Issa felt about the political and social reality when he was in Cameroon. Issa also talked about the African tradition of not going against the principles of nature and one of them being "gravity”, which is why he paints with all his paintings laid flat on the floor and he bends over them and lets the paint fall onto the paper in the direction of the gravity.

Tunde Odunlade is an artist from Nigeria who showcased his art piece "Education: Key to Success" among other works. The art work depicted the importance of education and the type of education. It laid emphasis on a "holistic" learning which helps an individual become a well-rounded person as opposed to just learning from books and texts. The other work was about an encounter with the elephant which the artist had when the elephant had suddenly chased him. He later learnt that this behavior was a commonly known trait of an elephant when the "male" elephant is protecting his family especially when there are baby elephants around. It depicted the role of the "male" of the species as nature made it.

Tunde believes in the role of the artists doing good for the society and he cited an example for this when he pulled together various artists from Nigeria in convincing the international organizations such as IMF, World Bank and other creditor nations to give Nigeria the debt relief that the country badly needed. 41 paintings from Nigeria's most prominent artists were selected to depict the major events in each of the 41 years of Nigerian Independence

When I did some research I found another of Tunde’s work at the following site : The October Gallery

Bridgette Mlilo from South Africa showcased her works "Nubian Queen” and “Afro” both made from mixed media. She explained that she just looks around at objects and gets inspired to create art out of rags or just insignificant things lying around

-- Uttara