My first Contemporary Art find in Nairobi: Charles Ngatia

No, Charles Ngatia has no formal training, Yes, Charles Ngatia "gets it."

Ngatia hails from the "slum," his words. His imagery portrays his "hometown," the slum, shantytowns. The colors, the vibrancy, the people, the isolation, the insularity (yea, the insularity - of being isolated from culture, from worldliness, from interaction -like living on an island) of belonging to the slum.

Look above at this "snapshot" of the slum. It is isolated - cubes of color on a wash of sky, even the ground floats like an island. People that are faceless members of the community.  I LOVE THIS - the texture, the rawness, the INSULARITY.

Here again is another small 12" x 16" image of the slum - It COULD be an island! Are those doors? entrances? or walls....? Is this the back or front of a row? And we "know" what shanty town looks like, eh? Certainly this is a "take-away" a cut-out, and slice - providing insight that even on "slum island" there is further isolation and yes, INSULARITY.

The colors are just so brilliant used as texture to create composition, I think about Lyonel Feininger, not that Ngatia is as tender with his brush and construction - but the alignment and juxtaposition of color is so natural and intuitive  - Yes, I am addicted. Oh the dissonance of perspective - is REAL! Have you been to a shanty town? Walls, alleys, rows, roofs are all askew - there is no rules for construction - colors are not approved by a neighborhood committee.

Do you see here, the windows? Maybe interior lighting? Where are the people? Eh? INSULARITY.

Here is a larger stretched canvas. Again we see the neighborhood that is familiar to Ngatia. We know that slums are filled FILLED with people. BUSTLING with people - why then are there no people on this bright warm day? On this island - where are the people?

So here is a person - here is a member of the community. Nagtia has produced a small number of portraits like the one above. Of course, his eyes are closed. And I don't know, maybe those are onions, vibrations, the rays of the sun - or maybe waves, WAVES, as this young man is washed up on the shore on his island....

On visiting Ngatia's studio, we found him working on a larger canvas, in a more detailed, and structured manner with additional components of material to create people - he has scraps of cut out lapa cloth that he is crafting people - but let is again notice that they are faceless on the street....

So excited to have met Ngatia and to talk about his work. I look forward to returning to his studio and learning more about his art! I hope you will too.