OMBA GALLERY: 'Kemanguluko', meaning 'Towards Freedom' (Oshiwambo)

Omba Gallery is delighted to host ‘Kemanguluko’ a mixed media collaborative exhibition by four (4) Namibian artists exploring the complex and often politicised term of ‘freedom.’ Internationally renowned artist, John Sampson, opened the exhibition on Friday, 4 September 2015.

Kemanguluko means ‘towards freedom’ in Oshiwambo and describes a process or movement, physically, emotionally or spiritually, in the direction of liberation or freedom. The group of Namibian artists embracing the dictum of ‘kemanguluko’, collaborated to present discerning viewers with four different perspectives and explorations of freedom using photography and paint. 

About Tuli-Mekondjo Mbumba

‘I want the freedom to create without being categorised; I want the freedom to create whatever I want as an artist.’

Self-taught Namibian fine artist, Tuli-Mekondjo Mbumba, was born in a refugee camp in Angola during the Namibian-Angolan Border War. It is therefore not surprising that the name given to her, Tuli-Mekondjo, means ‘we are in the struggle’ in Oshiwambo, her native language.

Her earliest memory of an intuitive awareness and attraction to art eventually shaping her artistic expression, occurred shortly after Tuli-Mekondjo returned to an independent Namibia and had the opportunity to meet her grandmother in a village in northern Namibia. She clearly recalls she was visually impressed by her grandmother’s wrinkly and weathered hands so much so that she could not enough admire the gleaming leathery consistency and multitude of lines crisscrossing each hand. This fascination was quickly followed by a sensory occupation with the colours, textures and variety of her grandmother’s beads and handmade jewellery.

Tuli-Mekondjo, a full-time pre-school teacher, draws upon folklore and older forms of African artistic expression to create arresting paintings. Her creative process siphons sustenance from the existing environment, a historical legacy lush with tradition and an extensive private reservoir of intuition with a subtle suggestion of nostalgia. The results of this process are refreshing and thought-provoking; the human face is transformed into a traditional African ceremonial mask and in the place of the elaborate raffia headdress, protruding from the uppermost part of the mask, is an exposed human brain sans skull.

The bold, confident lines and borders in Tuli-Mekondjo’s paintings express a quiet strength and assertion, a finite limitation almost, which intersect appealingly with her choice of vivid colours to create magnetic pieces, each the independent embodiment of her fascinating aesthetic.

She will exhibit six (6) paintings of various sizes as part of the Kemanguluko collaboration exhibition at Omba Gallery.

About Liezl Hoving

‘Our free nature is not just one thing; it also encompasses the freedom to move…to transition.’

Namibian photographer, Liezl Hoving, is famous for her ‘Project Feet’ exhibition which continues to resonate with those who attended her exhibition, four years later. She has the need and remarkable ability to emotionally connect on numerous levels with her subject matter and, to successfully convey the intimacy of that connection to viewers using only a camera. It is that particular ability to visually convey a compassion for her subjects, an expression of simpatico and unsettling revelation of vulnerability in Hoving’s photographs which haunts the viewer long after the eyes have turned away.

Liezl Hoving, a chef and yoga teacher by profession, grew up in Oshakati and Gobabis, and was trained in photography by renowned veteran photographer, Tony Figueira. As a consequence of her involvement in yoga, she communicated a curiosity about how people move in their internal spaces; their physical and self-imposed limitations.

As part of the Kemanguluko exhibition, Hoving will exhibit a series of black and white photographs in collaboration with other photographers and fine artist, Tuli-Mekondjo. Despite the absence of colour, Hoving’s images are not strictly black and white but rather a visual encounter of traditional black and white photography with languid shadows of nude silhouettes. 

Against the dramatic backdrop of the dunes of the Namib Desert, beaches in Swakopmund and the aggressive sparseness of area in and around Usakos in western Namibia, Hoving’s naked human subjects manifest and move in her photographs as brief and ephemeral as phantoms.  The nudity of her subjects was a purposeful approach to strip away artifice in an effort to bring about comfort and ease with being unclothed. In order to foster trust and reach a state of voluntary exposure, the photographer went as far as disrobing herself.

The results of this process are impressive and, in typical Hoving manner, poignant and unforgettable. Naked, faceless spectres move and flow between trees, reveal themselves on the beach and frolic along the sharply delineated ridges of desert dunes sans colour. Evident in the photographs is her expression of freedom as a manifestation of movement; in a real sense and as a transition on a spiritual level. Every photograph is a complete story worthy of reflection upon the questions imposed on the viewer regarding real or spiritual movement and the role our perceptions of our physical forms play in limiting or liberating our progress.

About Christian Goltz

‘Photography is about perception and psychology.’

UNAM photography lecturer, Christian Goltz, is well-known for his sensual depictions of women from Africa. His aesthetic developed as a direct result of specific personal experiences under Apartheid when social contact and conduct were divided along racial lines and sharply contradicted his naturally approachable and social disposition. He was morally repulsed by social organisation in Namibia and frequently left the country to experience some semblance of freedom from repression in Europe, specifically.

A few years ago, Goltz conceptualised his ‘Born Free’ photography project. A series of photographs depicting women, he remarks upon the remarkable changes women in Namibia have undergone since Namibia achieved political independence and Apartheid was abolished. Whereas they displayed submissive attitudes and were confined to roles of servitude under Apartheid, ‘born free’ women are self-confident and display immeasurable character.

Goltz, a keen observer of human nature, will display three (3) large, colour photo portraits as part of the Kemanguluko exhibition. All three photographs depict larger-than-life neck-and-head images of ‘born free’ Namibian women who stare directly at the viewer. He explained that the aim of the photographs is to challenge viewers of a particular mind-set, similar to the mind-set pervasive in Apartheid Namibia, to acknowledge the beauty, confidence and character of women from Africa. He seeks to challenge perceptions and confront them with their own preconceived misconceptions involving African women.

Using a variety of subtle techniques, including background blurring, Goltz draws the viewer’s eye directly to the eyes of his subjects. His perspective of ‘born free’ Namibian women challenges psychological dialogues, convictions and perceptions.

About Marita van Rooyen

‘The choice and ability to look at ordinary objects in a different way, sets you free.’

Photographer, Marita van Rooyen, was born and raised on a farm in Gobabis, eastern Namibia. At the age of eleven (11), a family member gave her a camera as a present which she used to photograph and study cats. While studying journalism at university a few years later, a relationship with a photographer inspired her to seriously take up photography as a medium to document reality.

Over a period of time, Marita, a Masters in Documentary Photography graduate, turned her focus from the world outside inwards. In a fascinating process of prolonged introspection using a camera as medium, the imagery of her photographs increasingly became reflections of ordinary recognisable objects as abstractions. The photographs on display as part of the Kemanguluko exhibition were part of Van Rooyen’s Masters thesis and are an inspiring collection of abstract portrayals.

Van Rooyen said the purpose of her photography is to invite viewers to not only look differently at things we take for granted but also to explore via thought personal perspectives. Nothing is ordinary in Van Rooyen’s persuasive view; the ordinary is indeed extraordinary.

  

You are hereby invited to join us at Omba Gallery for the opening of ‘Kemanguluko’ (Osh. ‘towards freedom’) on Friday, 4 September 2015, at 18:00. Refreshments and snacks will be served.

For more information, please contact:

Shareen Thude

Manager: Namibia Craft Centre and Omba Gallery

Tel: (061) 242 222 / 081 124 0982

E-mail: craftcentre@iway.na

ABOUT OMBA ART GALLERY

Omba Art Gallery is a private, commercial gallery situated in the heart of the city of Windhoek, the capital of Namibia. A small, intimate atrium, Omba offers premium exhibition space to artists and a pleasant, private atmosphere in which collectors and lovers may view original art up close.