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Richard Onyango is no stranger to sculpture having made several models of his beloved land rover, a miniature train and several other works over the years, but he is now turning his attention to larger works.
Above are life size sculptures of Drosie (the woman he was in love with the eighties and who died tragically nine months into their relationship) and himself, produced for the Malindi Biennale, these particular sculptures are now the subject of a court case about which I shall comment later after the case has been decided - suffice it to say the life for an artist in Africa can be rocky - but Richard has an extraordinary attitude - he bears no grudges, he is only concerned with wishing for others what he would wish for himself. Totally undaunted by the legal machinations surrounding his first large scale sculptures he is moving on to literally bigger things with plans to produce an enormous ship installation which will house other sculptures representing elements of his life from Drosie, to buses, other machines and even wild animals. I believe Richard's forthcoming sculpture will be amongst his most powerful work he has done, and I will keep you informed about it as the idea takes shape.
See more of Richard Onyango's work in Jean Pigozzi's great collection of Contemporary Africa Art http://www.caacart.com/html/onyango_frameset.html
3 comments:
Dear Ed,
Thank you very much for the link on your blog. I’m glad you also linked to African Colours. They are a great group. On my web site you will see that I only have two works remaining of Charles Sekano’s. I would really appreciate being in contact with him once again if anyone knows of his whereabouts in South Africa. I thought I would write a bit about Charles, if I may. I had a one man show of Charles Sekano’s work in 1989. This offered the opportunity to converse with him and the opportunity to gather a large body of his work in one place. The entire show was comprised of profiles of strong African women. Many things about the show were striking; however, for me the diversity of facial features and his natural skill as a colorist, stood out. Charles explained that he had traveled widely in Africa and was, therefore, bringing to his work the great diversity of facial types and dress (like head scarves) that is representative of Africa. And then the incredible colors. There was not one face that was a known skin tone. Charles explained that his comment on apartheid in his own country, South Africa, was never to do a face in black or in white. Why did Charles Sekano always do oil pastels of women? There is the obvious reason that he loved them. There is also the metaphoric reason which seemed to influence all his work. For him women represented Mother Nature and the beauty of South Africa. They also represented the Motherland which, at that time, he loved but could not visit. It would be important to see how his ability to return to South Africa has influenced and changed his work.
You write very well.
africanworks.blogspot.com; You saved my day again.
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