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MAKEMBA KUNLE
"Makemba 2008"
11 - 20 March, 2008
extended to 4 April 2008Catalogue- click here
Opening night pictures - click here
Media Reports- Express
GuardianVisitors Comments - click here
ARTIST’S STATEMENT
Who is Makemba Kunle?
Makemba Kunle is the artist that gave the country “Whe-Whe” - an initiation in 1990, the year before Play-Whe was introduced, and who in 1995 came with the Last Warrior, a giant collection of drawings and paintings apocalyptic in its content. This was followed by several exhibitions – Humming a New Beginning, Makemba in Black and White, ‘Let Thy Works be Seen’, and ‘Thunder’ and more recently, there was “Prayers’ in 2006. This would be his first gallery showing in many years, since he had deliberately kept his distance from the amazing and constant flow of mediocrities, hoping it would pass, but it seems never-ending. So before he got too old to fight, Makemba made up his mind to end his retreat and jump in the fray, for he is essentially a warrior and a revolutionary.
A reporter asked me to talk about my work and thinking that he was unfamiliar with it, this is the answer I gave.
First, my work is all about seeing, so to talk about my work to someone who has not seen it, appears to me almost ridiculous and pointless. Where does one find the words when one is not a literary genius? How do you describe the world of spaces between words? One would have to be a poet, a philosopher, and a word smith of the highest degree, to follow me stroke by stroke, layer by layer, into the very heart of the painting which is another world; another world which has no hand holds nor foot holds and where one has to open one’s eyes to new ways of seeing. I wish there was someone who could write about my work, to give it reference and context, using words that go into the heart of the reader as he guides himself among the colours. He might describe the weightlessness, the timelessness of the event, the spaces in the water, the fleeting atoms and bubbles in moist air. He might be able to read, in the splatter of the paint, spirits rising, or the wailing of a mother over the death of her child.
My work is grounded in Trinidad Carnival, which has always influenced my work to some extent. The texture, colour, form, movement, countless narratives, oral history and folklore add to my conviction that Carnival is the ultimate school of the Arts.
I don’t know whether it will ever be taken really seriously and I am not trying to be any spokesperson for Carnival or Carnival Art. Peter Minshall has spoken quite eloquently on it, Leroy Clarke touched upon it in 2002 when he created the short lived Carnival Art Exhibition, then at the Queens Park Savannah, sponsored by the National Carnival Commission when the then Minister of Culture at the time said ‘we must have it again next year, and she was seconded by the then chairman of the National Carnival Committee and also the C.E.O., but which we never saw the likes of since. We forget so quickly!
Then there are others who make it a study. Read ‘Ah Come Home for Carnival’ edited and with essays by Ian Smart and Kimani Nekusi, their perspectives are insightful, plausible and illuminating and they encourage me to pursue the search for new standards, using Carnival as a barometer, an authority and a muse.
I have a feeling that this will eventually lead me to disperse with canvas painting and move on to other media. I don’t know, but for now, I make my art in these little windows, paint on paper or canvas or wood in neat little rectangles, and within those severe limitations self-imposed in acquiescence to demands of a conservative market, but done in a style appropriate to the media; well, hopefully so, for when people ask me ‘what style is that’? I myself am perplexed, and the best I can come up with is ‘well is a sorta Carnival style’.
But it is less difficult for me to speak about myself than to talk about the paintings.