Onesmus Okamar's dig into archives of the soul, past

Onesmus Okamar’s paintings in his exhibition ‘Archives of My Soul’ portray the soul in a genderless form. Women are dressed in colourful gowns, eyes closed, holding flowers, and offering each other comfort, and these same figures carry his experiences and thoughts.

The pieces exude themes of self-love, inner peace, self-esteem, and familial support. The gowns represent the serene inner world and outward comfort and protection to those around them.    

‘The Day My Spirit Danced’ shows two women sitting with flowers sprouting from bricks. Onesmus says it is about those who helped him during tumultuous experiences. “The recurring imagery of flowers blooming in the cracks of rocks acts as a central metaphor, a visual testimony that even within life’s hardest and most unyielding places, something tender and alive can still push through,” he says.

The artist adds that the flowers symbolise survival, resilience and the understanding that the soul doesn’t wither in all seasons.

Take ‘Peace Found Me Here’, for instance, an oil on canvas piece of a woman donned in a gown, eyes peacefully closed. There are two other women and a young boy below her. Onesmus sees himself in the boy, who is supported by women – his mother, grandmother and aunt.

The Seven Artists Collective member says the lady (his grandmother) is closing her eyes as a sign of introspection and meditation to portray her inner strength. “The work is more of me referring to early childhood experiences and how values like confidence emanate from. There is no father figure in the piece since my grandfather passed on. It’s about a celebration of the women who have been around me,” he says. 

These are some of the artworks for his contemplative solo exhibition titled ‘Archives of My Soul’, which opens on Saturday at the HOF Gallery Kibera. Onesmus can’t remember how female subjects are centred in his work. At one point he pondered the gender of a soul and, from his biblical understanding, came to see it as genderless.

The award-winning artist captured solitude bliss by capturing a woman in a contemplative state in ‘Stillness Was My First Language (My Silence Has Always Been a Study)’ and another of a lady holding a vibrant bouquet of flowers in ‘When My Heart Learnt to Speak’. “The characters I depict are often in stillness. This introspective gaze inward reflects a spiritual truth: that self-knowing is often born in silence. Some of these figures hold books and flowers, and some hold nothing at all but themselves. Yet in each, there is a kind of sacred witnessing taking place,” he expresses. The exhibition is on view at the HOF Gallery Kibera until August 3.

Debe – A Container for Material Culture’

Another artist Adam Yawe is also showing a solo exhibition, ‘Debe – A Container for Material Culture’, at the Creativity Gallery, Nairobi National Museum. In it he examines the multi-layered meanings of ‘debe’ (translated to ‘container’), with pieces such as leather bags, khangas, stools, plates and musical instruments.

Adam is an object storyteller and designer who retells stories of the past through a contemporary lens. He recreates pieces from museum collections and ordinary items that he sees.

Take, for instance, the ‘Kanjo Clamp Bag’, a piece inspired by the clamp used by city council officers whose shape sparked an idea to design leather bags. This is what unlocked the concept behind this entire showcase. “The idea of using a reference object as inspiration is what is essentially happening in the whole exhibition,” he says.

Sound is a significant medium for him, as seen in Pararira’, a musical instrument made from matatu horns. ‘Makangas’ are khangas with patterns of matatu speakers. Then there is ‘Nyadebe’, a Bluetooth speaker Nyatiti titled ‘Nyadebe’ that is a reimagined Luo musical instrument he got from the museum store. ‘Nyadebe’ a commissioned track by electronic musician “Ng’at Maler” is playing on the Nyadebe speaker at the gallery. He explains that the instrument reminds him of Ayub Ogada’s song, ‘Kothbiro’ (translated to ‘rain is coming’) and he invites viewers to find calm in noise.

“Rain makes me think of noise. When I was making the speaker, I was thinking about how to make noise pleasant,” he says.

He continues: “Debe is a physical and metaphorical container of stories. ‘Debe’ is Kiswahili for ‘container’, and in Sheng it is a ‘speaker’. It holds the stories and invites people to come and visit it. It is a container for things and for people to come to visit the things.”

Adam worked alongside artisans in the creation with processes such as carpentry, metal casting, tailoring, shoe making, leather work, and Kisii stone carving. His creative process entails designing digital 3D models and 3D printing them in order to share with artisans who then make the final pieces.

“Objects have meanings that we give them. As much as it’s important for stolen objects in foreign museums to be repatriated, I think it’s also important to remember that these objects have meaning because we give it to them.