Her art is many things rolled into one

Awuor Onyango is a 27-year-old artist who studied French and English law, but ended up in this unrestricted world where she is free to come up with her own interpretation of her surroundings. PHOTO| EVANS HABIL

What you need to know:

  • She has been involved in numerous art projects including Some Kind of Blackness, a collaborative sound/video and photography project, The Library of Silence -Chale Wote Street Art Festival, Miss Babe v Mama Baby — Women’s Freedom Conference Of Freedoms Yet Unattained, The African is Part of The Tour-SHE: An International Arts Collaboration.
  • I read French Law at Université Laval and English Law at the University of Birmingham, but I had very little interest in these, so in an effort to find something fun to do.
  • I attended many art workshops to learn more about what was happening in the art world as well as figure out which artistic medium suited me and what kind of artist I was.
  • Awuor agrees that getting an exhibition in the art galleries in Kenya is challenging for new artists because unlike in other spaces where there are galleries owned by art collectors or by the government.

Awuor Onyango is a 27-year-old artist who sees the world as a global village.

She has been involved in numerous art projects. They include: Some Kind of Blackness, a collaborative sound/video and photography project, The Library of Silence -Chale Wote Street Art Festival, Accra Ghana, Miss Babe v Mama Baby — Women’s Freedom Conference New York (October 2015), Of Freedoms Yet Unattained — Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA Review) Lagos, and The African is Part of The Tour-SHE: An International Arts Collaboration exploring the construct of femininity, held in London.

Awuor Onyango is a 27-year-old artist who studied French and English law, but ended up in this unrestricted world where she is free to come up with her own interpretation of her surroundings. PHOTO| EVANS HABIL

Awuor had to “wiggle” herself into her art career. Like most parents, her father initially preferred that she choose a career that had the promise of stability.

“I read French Law at Université Laval and English Law at the University of Birmingham, but I had very little interest in these, so in an effort to find something fun to do, I started an art blog,
Africanartagenda.tumblr.com, because I loved art. This is how my art career started,” Awuor says.
She started her blog in 2010 when African art was beginning to attract a lot of attention in London, where she was living at the time. As a result, a lot of auction houses there were starting to pay attention to African art.

“I tapped into this great curiosity and because I was writing about African art, I started getting invitations to events about African art. This how I begun to build my profile and networks in the art world,” she says.

And thus, the recognition of her early passions started dawning.

“In high school, I studied geography not because I cared about the subject, but because I liked drawing and there was a lot of that in geography. Often, I offered to draw for my classmates,” she says.
It is such incidences – her initial dallies with art— that would later dot her path towards her career as an artist.

Today, Awuor is a painter, a sculptor, a photographer, a video artist as well as an installation artist.

Art by artist Awour Onyango. The project was called Makeda, commissioned by the Goethe for Space: A digital Art Fair (2016). PHOTO| PAUL MUNENE

“I also do photo essays. I am currently doing one about the effect of slavery across various slave ports in Africa – Lamu, Malindi, Accra, Jamestown.”
Awuor made the decision to concentrate on art in 2013, a decision that was not easy considering the fact that her family leans towards the legal field and also because she had already invested time and money to study law.

“The decision was very hard on me and on my family because a career in art can be quite unstable. My parents wanted me at a financially safe place. At a personal level, I needed a lot of confirmation that completely taking up art was the right thing for me,” she says.
In between this indecision, Awuor resorted to being a lawyer who also loved art, but after she was sure that art was really where she wanted to go, she started to take up opportunities to develop her artistic skills.
“I attended many art workshops to learn more about what was happening in the art world as well as figure out which artistic medium suited me and what kind of artist I was,” she says. It is in one of these workshops that she met Gakunju Kaigwa. Gakunju is a sculptor who works with wood, glass, steel and bronze. It was him who encouraged her to try out as many art forms as possible.

“The most important thing that he told me was that I should not limit myself to one kind of art as I was planning to because art is about meeting people where they are. So apart from painting, I explored the other art forms that I practice today,” she says.

Awuor agrees that getting an exhibition in the art galleries in Kenya is challenging for new artists because unlike in other spaces where there are galleries owned by art collectors or by the government, and which provide more opportunities for artists just starting, the galleries in Kenya are commercial, so it is only logical for them to choose to exhibit art that sells.

Like other artists at the beginning of their careers, she had a hard time getting exhibitions in the country.

“I found a job at an art gallery, giving me a chance to understand how art galleries in the country work. Getting your foot in the door is a challenge, and idealistic ideas about the most talented being the most accepted in galleries do not work. Established artists will be preferred because they already have a market,” she explains.

But that is not to say that you should give up your passion and talent because the art world is bigger than Nairobi or commercial galleries, so there is so much room to explore other options made available by the web.

Art by artist Awour Onyango. The project was called Makeda, commissioned by the Goethe for Space: A digital Art Fair (2016). PHOTO| PAUL MUNENE

“You can put your work out there through the Internet; the world is closer than you think.”

Artists who are starting need to understand that there are levels to their successes; there is what is accessible to them and what is not, so that it is imperative to begin by working with what they have, but not lose focus of where they want to go.

In art, Awuor notes, there is pressure to produce what sells and get comfortable, but this is a disservice to your talent because constantly producing one thing turns you from an artist into a manufacturer.

“The most important factor to remember is that your talent is bigger than the problems of Nairobi, so do not allow any challenge to get your eyes off your target destination. Growth is the new stability – adapt and change with the times,” is her advice.

Awuor’s greatest motivation in her art has been the chance that it provides her to ask questions and push boundaries.

“There is a lot that I would love to understand and explore; art enables me to do this,” she says, adding,

“I am also interested in womanist art – the places where women are put in art spaces as well as in art pieces. A lot of feminisms come through my work, a consequence of my genuine belief in the empowerment of women,” she says.

Today, Awuor says that she gets a lot of her projects through referrals, and it is not uncommon for her to be approached through her social media platforms which she insists that any up and coming artists must begin working with. It is also unwise, Awuor advices, to completely rely on galleries to get shows.

“Internet solves a lot of accessibility problems. Learn to go online, look for opportunities and apply to participate. Put yourself out there – do not over-rely on galleries to expose you,” she says.

So, does art pay?

“There is difficulty in translating the traditional African view of Art as a way of life and the western view of art as a consumable object which can be bought and treasured. Unfortunately, African artists in general tend to see this as “Africans don’t appreciate art”, so often, sales are targeted at westerners. This also means we are selling our current cultural heritage to the West and will have to buy it back in future.

It also means that artists such as myself cannot approximate how much we make in a month (sometimes/often it’s nothing) because we never know if a print or painting will sell, and often, the desperation to sell a piece leads to its undervaluation.”
She adds,

“The things I value about what I do don’t easily fit into economic terms like profit or lucrative. My art comes with an entirely different value system. I tend to focus more on what the project or undertaking means, what I learn from it, what conversations it evokes. If lucrative means economically profitable, I am a recipient of the British Council’s New Art New Audiences grant and have received 8,000 pounds, (Approximately 1million), to carry out a collaboration. I primarily sell photography prints and work on commission, collaborative and grant basis where digital and visual projects are involved.”