Every narrative has a conflict. Every artwork has a narrative. Conflict is a major literary element. Through this exhibition, different artists with specific art pieces will convey the types of conflicts which are codified as “Man against Man” Eltayeb Dawelbait and Onyis Martin, “Man against Nature” Paul Onditi,  Souad Abdel Rasoul and Peter Elungat, “Man against Self” Tesfaye Bekele, Kevin Oduor, “Man against Society” Rashid Diab and Shabu Mwangi, and “Man against Machine” Dennis Muraguri and Lemek Tompoika.

Man against Man

Who are The Spirits of Faces of Eltayeb? What are their names? Where do they come from? Tricky questions. When Eltayeb Dawelbait gets inspired by a face, when someone captivates his mind, he runs to his studio to express it. But in the process, his strong inner self interferes and affects the results. It becomes complicated to separate the new face from the portrait of the person to himself. Becoming himself, becoming her or him, or no one, or a new one, or an unknown one or all of them…

In Theory of space, Onyis Martin looks at the interpretation of the viewer. There are several bodies, but you may identify them as the same individual walking in different times or as multiple individuals living at the same time. They look the same because they are sharing an emotion, could be a concern, a thought, a joy… Where you locate your stance, “if against” or “in favour” is dictated by your state of mind.

The film Mr. Nobody starts with a young boy standing on a station platform. The train is about to leave. Should he go with his mother or stay with his father? An infinity of possibilities rise from this decision. As long as he doesn’t choose, anything is possible. Following each choice to its conclusion, he lives all the possible lives. Becoming three different people; the three at the same time or none.

Before his death, Mr. Nobody tells the journalist that neither of them exists. They are figments in the mind of the 9 year old boy at the train station.

Eltayeb, Onyis and Mr. Nobody are giving to the viewer the power to decide.  When there is an open choice there is an infinity of multiple states of being.

Man against Nature

Concerned with the global problem of climate change, Paul Onditi attempts to address this with Smokey. Smokey, the body that often appeared in the paintings of Paul navigates in a vacuum. He is in between time, place, phases and positions. This vacuum is the artists’ ideal place for questioning, research, exploration and manifestation of ideas. This isolated, anonymous figure that anchors the compositions, floats in these works over abstract backgrounds that include patches of fierce hues, highlighting global issues that connect us all: pollution, climate change, natural unrest and loss of resources.

The work of Souad Abdel Rasoul and Peter Elungat represents the relationship between the physical nature of human beings and their psychological and metaphysical state of being, in connection with a certain body or natural shape. Souad thinks nature is part of every human and, in turn, both nature and man influence one another. It is the foliage in man, the animal in man and also the mineral in man. Elungat in “Mushrooms, Red and Me” merge nature, the red as his state of mind and himself creating a kind of metamorphosis becoming all one soul.

Man against Self

“My diving bell becomes less oppressive, and my mind takes flight like a butterfly.”

― Jean-Dominique Bauby, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Tesfaye Bekele and Kevin Odour‘s work deal with the internal struggle of ‘self’ and existence in the physical space given the vessels in which we experience the physical space. Both very personal in subject matter and also execution and technique.

Bekele explores between the biological body we are given and the physical space to search and experiment what this physical human body is. In his Bodyless series, a complete body series where he explores the notions of a whole or complete body, he wonders, ‘Can one body be incomplete but complete another that is also incomplete?’

The limits of our physical body does not limit the inner worlds and the intimate relationship with the art and our freedom to express. As with Bekele’s works, the artworks of Kevin Oduor are intimately linked to his personal experience with his own body and movement or lack thereof. Kevin questions existence through representing parts of the body which evoke the absence of other parts or even the body itself. Does this body actually exist? He questions himself looking to his artworks. He goes even further, as he wonders if the physical presence of a body or a specific part of it is even necessary, pointing out that if that evocation of a body brings to mind a person, does it automatically have an existence?

Man against Society

How the body is located in physical space brings us to the works of Rashid Diab. Paintings of women in vast, open, even ominous landscapes with no real hint of their direction. Rashid reflects on the specific roles of women in Sudan and speaks of their status as society has constructed for them. Mystery abounds, he leaves much for the viewer to question and wonder not just in the case of Sudan but women’s roles across the globe.

In other societal conflicts, we have Lawrence ‘Shabu’ Mwangi. Derived from his personal experiences he depicts the differences and injustices between people in actual society. He portrays immigrants as the monsters the media describe them as, to highlight the lies that society accepts turning a blind eye. Through his honesty, his use of a particular and personal palette of colors and specific iconography he paints the reality of this world with its many unresolved conflicts.

 Man against machine

“Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious.” George Orwell, 1984

The sculptures of Dennis Muraguri look like industrial machines but they follow the anatomy of the human body. Slender yet intelligent structures of metal that support themselves like the bones in our bodies do. The analogy of body organs working like machines; the pumping of the heart or the bowels working like pipelines. The comparison and confrontation of the human behaving like a machine make us think of the imagined futuristic purgatory that George Orwell portrayed in his book “1984”. Cold and hard like robots but the works still have natural organic shapes which may be fighting for the real inner self, the humanity, the instincts, the divinity…

The same theme appears in the work of Lemek Tompoika.. Bodies coming up to a head that is just a black box. This box represents the things imposed by society that often enough is not questioned. Religion, traditions and culture are already established and decided for us. Many people, like robots with a lack of consciousness accept these principles as a matter of fact as if the debate on the matter is not even an option.