Talking to the Nairobi artist, Peterson Kamwathi, and looking at his woodprints provides a penetrating flash of insight into key issues affecting Kenyan society, such as the constitutional referendum of 2005, reports Karen Dabrowska.


Kenya’s master of woodprints P


ETERSON KAMWATHI IS A HIS- torian, recorder and questioner. His narratives take the form of woodprints which explore de- velopments in Kenya such as the


constitutional referendum of 2005. The 30-year-old artist talks with the wisdom of a man twice his age, carefully considering answers to questions, weighing every word. For him conversations are laboratories. “Conversations open my eyes,” he says.


“What is in front of you is your teacher – even the things you don’t see. Conver- sations are stimulants in the sense that a thought or idea is malleable and can be toyed with, passed around, stretched, hammered, etc. Rarely do I find conversa- tions definitive.” Born in 1980, Kamwathi is one of Ken-


ya’s leading visual artists. He lives and works in the Nairobi suburb of Kiambu.


88 | June 2011 New African


Since graduating from the Shang Tao Media Arts College in 2005, he has taken part in numerous exhibitions including the Edinburgh Art Festival, the Liverpool World Museum (both in England), and an exhibition at the World Bank headquar- ters in Washington DC entitled “Africa Now: Emerging talent from a continent on the move”. He has also held solo exhibitions at the


Nairobi GoDown Art Centre. In 2005, he took part in the London Bankside Gallery Exhibition of Kenyan prints. A broad, engaging smile is never far


from Kamwathi’s lips. He loves his work and his enthusiasm for woodprints knows no bounds. Te colours are sombre and he jokingly refers to “a pragmatic mel- ancholy”. “With print making the media itself restricts the speed with which I work so I


have to take time about what I am doing,” he explains. “When I am painting, I paint very fast but when I am creating woodcuts, the process forces me to slow down. Te paint has to dry, I can only carve so fast, it is laborious. So I reflect a lot on what I am working on. In that process, I trim away all the unnecessary weight and get to the core of what I am talking about. Tere are a few grey areas to what I am trying to say; so I filter the message rather than let it be in your face.” Despite his preoccupation with political


issues, Kamwathi insists that his art is nei- ther the art of political protest nor the art of political advocacy. “Neither is my point of departure. My art is my perception about what happens in my environment as a Kenyan, as a Nairobean, as someone who is affected by all that is happening. I am referencing social issues – politics is a


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