Early this year, Nigerian hyperrealist Oresegun Olumide posted a few of his oil on canvas paintings on Instagram and the response was unbelievable. In just under a few weeks, he had gained around 200, 000 followers on Instagram and with a click of the mouse, he moved from being what I would call a bread seller to a trending topic.
The internet exhibition phenomena has caught up with Kenyan artist Nuru Bahati, who is currently running an online exhibition dubbed ‘People Change.’ The exhibition which opened on 04th of September has seen the artist share some of his images with his audience evoking discussion and introspection.‘People Change’ is not just about the artist showing his work, it is about the outlier artist bringing people together to discuss serious issues on humanity. It is about people looking at the real picture of that person in the mirror. It is the reality emboldened in black and white so as to question humanity’s actions and in a way better the spirituality of mortals.
Bahati is a jovial young mind who studied at nairobi’s Buruburu Institute of Fine Arts, as an artiste, he juggles between poetry and visual arts, a restless being with dreams beyond the tomorrow attitude. Many would hope that Bahati’s art should be positive because change is towards the positive but the artist, connivingly sets the bowl of disgust onto the table and relishes at the stack irony of the bizarre which is modern day reality.
In “People Change”, Bahati stirs at a central topic that has always been on the lips of civil rights activists, governments, politicians, religious leaders and Non-governmental organizations. Change, such an easy word but according to Bahati, it is all about bitter truth; that people change towards the worst, towards the abnormal and the stupid. His depicts these scenarios, with a verdict that, change is subjective and its interpretations numerous with a lot of loop holes for the gloom and finger pointing.
Like Roger Ballen’s photography, Bahati’s work is subject to cautious scrutiny; it cuts deep scars and exudes goose bumps from the onset. It is chilling and at the same time beautiful, it is silent in its dark silhouettes with a loud voice on the white edges. It is hard to reconcile the fact that, the artist is a biro artist because this abstract art definitely puts him in the class of the surging digital artists who are now taking the cyber sphere my storm.
The Nuru exhibition, includes over 33 well-chosen pieces that are being posted on his twitter handle and facebook page Biroworks. The exhibition runs to the 17th of October 2016.