CULTURAL REFLECTIONS and PERCEPTION
ART EXHIBITION by LUTALO KAKONZI
Opened by AMBASSADOR DUDLEY THOMPSON 0.J., Q.0
Wednesday May 6th 1998 at 7pm.
Introduction...No man's an expert on Africa.Whoever holds
himself as such is either a FOOL or a KNAVE .1 deny both titles
Africa was a coastline
the dark continent
" 7 Scramble for Gold, Diamonds EXPLOITATION
Visited some 40 countries in Africa and only lifted the cover of
the melting pot of tremendous diversity and human history.
An area as large as India and China or 3 1/2 x The USA.
I welcome the burgeoning interest in African Art. One
achievement is the rectifying certain misunderstandings adapted
by us in our Western view as regards ART.
What is revealed to us today by the African Artist is a peculiar
feature of African Art. I call it the Spiritual Connection.
Here the Artist draws from his ancient tradition, religion and
heritage those spiritual relations with his ancestry with the hope of
directing them to the assistance of the onlookers of today. His
work is entirely unaffected by the desire for applause. His creation
is his contribution to the cosmos.
Western Art on the other hand largely emphasises the
imitation of the beauty of NATURE It is decorative.It is created to
please the onlookers'In African Aft the Spirits are media through
which the artist communicates with GOD and his ancestors.
Makonzi in the paintings and ceramics on display today
reveals his innate creative skill to combine both the beauty and the
inspiration flowing from the spiritual world which is part of his
cultural heritage.
- In such pieces as "Speak Softly" no.3 we revisit the African
bride proving her virginity and the hidden witnesses. This painting
also reveals in the 2 faces blended as one the distortion and
stylisation which Picasso took with his distortions from African
art.No.21 "Portrait of the Saints" is part of a mural done by the
artist on stained glass for a cathedral in Africa and tells there story
of the Martyrdom on that continent in the conversion from Islam to
Christianity.
Of Makonzi himself his career of sheer brilliance rivals that
of his creations.Educated at Makerere in Uganda, his home, he
went on to the Royal College of Art in London where he obtained
a Master of Arts Degree in Industrial Ceramics and Des ign.He was
invited as an Artist in residence Senior Lecturer and Researcher at
Harvard University and Radcliffe College in Massachusetts.He
interrupted that residence to come to Jamaica and at present
teaches Ceramics part time at the Edna Manley College of
Performing Arts.He has received numerous honours including a
Silver Medal from the Royal college of Art, London. He has held
several exhibitions here and abroad.
Picasso ,Mattisse and some of the famous painters of that period
left the "beaten track of Europe" to find new inspiration in Africa
which reflected in line and form as well as content.Here they found
the inexhaustible source in African Art which answers Picasso's
famous question,"What else is left for us to do? The answer is
"PLENTY."