We would like to begin by congratulating all the artists who submitted their works for consideration, in both the students and the practising artists categories. Judging the competition was an exciting, challenging, and overall revelatory experience for us, and, we offer our thanks to the GoDown Arts Centre and the competitors for that opportunity
As jurors for this year’s Manjano competition, we had two responsibilities. The first was to review the submitted works and eliminate works, leaving those that we felt were suitable for inclusion in the Manjano exhibition. The second was to select three works from each category, student artists and practising artists, to award the first, second and third prize. The submissions offered an abundance of riches for us to view; we reviewed a total of 212 artworks from 140 artists, 100 practicing artists and 40 student artists. Of these 33 works (51%) were selected from the students’ category and 69 works (47%) from the practising artists’ category.
What were we looking for while judging the Manjano submissions? How did we determine artistic merit? In selecting works for the exhibition, and awarding the prizes, we sought a combination of the following:
All the awardees possess most, if not all of these qualities. Firstly, the awarded works all displayed a great level of technical skill. In addition to depicting an event/encounter/experience that is typical of Nairobi, each of the three artists has harnessed form and the properties of their medium to offer a sensory experience that echoes their subject matter.
Of the works that were eliminated, many were well executed, but did not move beyond mere technique. Some of these, whilst ambitious and technically accomplished, lacked the thoughtfulness and rigour needed to elevate them to something more than a display of skill. Too often, works whose thematic interests were strong, missed the mark due to unresolved issues/areas with respect to the execution.
Notably, our choices for first second and third prize in the practicing artists category are all works of painting, which was the most represented medium among the submitted works. We hope that in future, there will be more done to encourage and enable submissions from artists working in other media, from the more traditional such as printmaking and drawing, to new experimental media. We also noted that the number of submissions from students was significantly lower than the submissions from practicing artists – less than half. It would be worthwhile for the organizers of the competition/exhibition to look into ways to encourage and enable more participation from students.
The opportunity to receive assessment from professionals with seasoned aesthetic discernment can be quite valuable and important for challenging and developing one’s own sensibilities, and we are honoured to have been invited to contribute in a small way to this. Thank you to all the artists for the courage to submit their work for consideration. We hope that this experience energizes and inspires you and your peers to carry on making art in your studios.
Emily Odongo is a professional graphic designer and in-house art consultant, working for a leading architectural and interior design firm in Nairobi. She has worked primarily in the Construction and Interior Design Industry for the past decade where she specializes in signage and branding for built environments. She is experienced in managing multiple projects from inception to completion including pitching, developing artworks and schedules to roll-outs.
Emily is an established artist in her own right. A graduate of the Buru Buru Institute of Fine Arts, Emily’s paintings operate in the tensions between stillness and movement, solidity and transience, color, light and texture. She has been described as unique among her generation of Kenyan artists for her choice of abstraction as her main mode of expression. She is a widely collected artist, with works included in many private and corporate collections including the Aga Khan Foundation, African Wildlife Foundation, NCBA and Kenya Airways.
Don Handa is a curator and writer who lives and works in Nairobi where he is currently gallery manager at Circle Art Gallery. He has previously worked on exhibitions including Lucid Dreams at Circle Art Gallery in 2019; Found Footage, co-curated with Nyambura Waruingi, and Proximity to Power, co-curated with Thom Ogonga, both at the Goethe-Institut Nairobi in 2017. He has contributed text to several exhibitions including Lucid Dreams (2019), Jess Atieno’s To Stand on a Grain of Wheat (2019), Sidney Mang’ong’o’s Imagined Structures (2018), Shabu Mwangi’s The Stateless (2017), 27 (NGLHRC, 2017). Most recently, he wrote a profile on Agnes Waruguru for Y!Africa magazine, and interviewed Michael Armitage for Paradise Edict (Haus der Kunst, 2020). He is the co-creator and co-host of Corpus, a podcast on contemporary art from East Africa.
William Ndwiga is a Contemporary Visual Arts Scout and Curator at The Little Gallery, which he co-founded. He has been in the Kenyan Visual Arts scene for more than 10 years, having worked at RaMoMA, and African Colours. He was a pro bono associate curator for the Kenya Cultural Centre for over 4 years. He is the consulting curator for the 2018 Jubilee Arts festival (founded and run by the Aga Khan Development Network, Africa chapter – with Nairobi being its hub). William has organized and curated over 60 art exhibitions within East Africa. His greatest career success is the pop-up branded exhibitions, “An Afternoon with Art”, which ‘take art to the people’ by exhibiting in non-conventional spaces including homes, gardens, parks, malls, places of worship, hotels etc. The aim is to cultivate an audience and consumption of contemporary art in Kenyan homes.