Moses Nyawanda

Moses Nyawanda is the last born of eight children. When Nyawanda was young his mother prophesied he would become an artist. Little did she know that her prophecy had been fulfilled the day when Moses was caught sketching by his math teacher. The sketch was so good that poor Moses got a thorough thrashing after the teacher recognized himself. 

After grappling with several artistic practices from photography, sign-writing, and painting calabashes, Moses eventually attended formal art classes at the Creative Art Centre in Nairobi. In three years, Moses graduated with a diploma in fine arts and held his first solo exhibition at Yaya Centre. Over 15 years later, Moses has held numerous solo shows, won several art prizes and has been an artist in residence at Kuona Trust, the GoDown Arts Centre and the Railway Museum Art Studio (where he was a founding member). He now works from his home studio and shows his work around East Africa and the world.

Moses has this to say about his current artistic practice, “At the moment, my medium of choice is oils. Over the years, I have developed a style of painting where l use a palette knife to produce layers and layers of paint so the work ends up looking like it was done with pastels.  I like to imagine and paint what would happen to the subjects in my work (people or animals) if they had to work through different situations, what would they say, what would they do, what would happen? Throughout this process, I look to strip apart the visual scene that emerges in my mind and put it back together in ways that reveal many different layers of reality, of thought and emotion.”

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Moses' Statement for the Exhibition

Normally my paintings are always about happiness and the excitement and curiosities of life, but this time grief is coming out in many of my works and in fact, this is the first time I’m directly facing it on the canvas.

My collection of paintings for this exhibition aren’t really about the time before my daughter’s passing, but it is informed by it of course. They tell a larger story. It’s not just about children being sick but also the hope and joy that they have together as a community. As a community they hope to jump and fly over the disease that they face together in the hospital or to join heaven together. Some make it and some obviously don't. These paintings are about the weight of illness but also about hope. There’s always hope and actually children have a better sense of hope; they find happiness in all situations, maybe because they don’t overthink like adults do.  

My painting technique is a slow process because l work with oil paints. I start from dark colours and work towards the lighter tones with layer after layer to create texture. l am keen on colour balancing and my subject matters are usually my life experiences. For this particular experience, I’m working from the outer ring of relationships into the inner circle and from the time before her passing, during and after. l must admit that it is a long process but I’m getting there.  

What this project and community has made me realise is that if one does not intentionally allow oneself to grieve and be part of it then there are chances that one may unknowingly grieve forever because usually it’s the anticipation of the journey that many experience but not the actual grief process itself. We must realise that there is no end to this thing called grief, but to enter the process, transform and help others through it is a gift.  It is an opportunity to see the world differently. An opportunity to reach out to those around you with the intention to improve their lives where possible. Grief can be positive both internally and externally. It all depends on the attitude of the bereaved.