Kofi Kiyaga, professor and Chair at the Massachusetts State University Department of Art.
KOFI KIYAGA , whose works, 'The Journey', are currently being shown at the Mutual Life Gallery, Kingston shrugs at the thought that he might be considered an old artist, as opposed to those who are " young and talented".
The age label means nothing to him, he says, as there are a lot of people who have left art school and have never "followed through".
Kiyaga, who is the first Black Chair of an art department at any state college in the United states, and who produces upwards of 300 works each year, a number to which he is personally committed, has a lot to show for all his 59 years.
Kiyaga is a tenured professor and Department Chair at Massachusetts College of Art. He is also a prolific painter who stages solo exhibitions every year at various galleries in the United States, in New York, Boston, Dallas, and in London, England and now in Jamaica.
His work has earned Kayiga numerous scholarships and awards throughout the years. Locally, his paintings can be found in various collections including the Bank of Jamaica, the National Gallery of Jamaica, and abroad, at the Museum of National Centre of Afro American Artists, the Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda and the collection of many colleges in the United States.
Kiyaga, who was painting murals while in art school [defiantly doing them in his own style, in spite of the strictures of a dogmatic teacher] gives us the impression that matters of identity have always been significant for him.
The prolific artist who concentrates mostly on pastels is a Jamaican, Kingston born. He changed his name in 1973 after visiting East Africa. While in Uganda he acquired the new name, Kofi Kiyaga, with Kiyaga meaning "highest hunter" from the elephant clan. "Kiyaga represents the number nine, the number of completion," he says.Career
His Jamaican family did not take kindly to either the name change or his chosen career as an artist.
"They have become more accepting only because I am a professor, not because of my art," Kiyaga suggests. "They think I am always difficult. But as an artist I have chosen a difficult life."
The difficulties for Kiyaga were not restricted to family, but also found him in art school where his first teacher insisted that he paint in his, the teacher's style.
Nevertheless, he was able to forge a path for himself from even then because he was a hard worker. He would submit to his teacher both works in this man's style and his own intuitive expressions.
His semi abstract style, he says expresses his inner vision which has, as its partial source, the collective consciousness of his African past and present. In Uganda, he says, "I became more secure in my search. There is a body of work by a people.
"My work is like Picasso. Not only African but also influenced by experience."
He has hardly broken his commitment to 300 works whether they be as small as a stamp or large murals. Graphic designing
At the Jamaica School of Art (now the now the Edna Manley College for the Visual and Performing Art) in the 60s Kiyaga also studied Graphic Design in Kingston where he graduated with a Diploma in 1966.
He won a Government of Jamaica Graduate Scholarship Award in 1968 to the Royal College of Art in London, England, where he gained a MFA in Painting in 1971. He continued post-graduate studies between 1971-73 at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda, researching African Traditional Religions.
His first exhibitions were held in the Caribbean, in Jamaica and Trinidad mostly, then it was on to galleries in North America and England.
Kiyaga who recognised very early that he would need a job to support his art continued his studies and taught. He worked with the School of Art in Jamaica until the early 80s when he started with the state university in Massachusetts as an associate professor. Today he has full tenure.
He is now married to Judith Smith with one daughter, Isis.
Massachusetts, he says, is overall a good experience, but the place is not his home.
"It is too cold," he says. As often as he can he comes home to the island to be with his family of the spirit, these including his artist colleagues with whom he attended school in the 60s and many of whom now head departments at the Edna Manley School of the Visual and Performing Arts.
This time around, he is staying with Cecil Cooper, head of the School of Art. The artistic connection is better than blood.
"We are spiritual brothers," he says.
- Avia Ustanny
