'The Musician and Beauty', oil on canvas
Sana Rose, Contributor
THE LATEST solo exhibition by Ugandan-born painter, ceramist and printmaker, Godfrey Lutalo Makonzi, is being hosted by The Mutual Gallery in New Kingston.
Aptly titled Harmony, we are spared the grotesqueness of war and the pathos of separation and presented only with mutual expressions of love between men and women, the coming of age of both of these characters and the celebratory thread of music that binds the various events together.
Interestingly, however, we detect an undertone of solemnity. In Farewell we are treated to the coolness and optimism of departing warriors; the sensuality of lovers embraced in The Kiss and the show title image, Harmony; a slight tension in Expectation where the attention of a woman and two children is directed away from us, a familial bond detectable; and the musician's prominence in marking events of which we are never sure of because instrumentalists are often pictured alone.
Makonzi has been living in Jamaica since 1976. His images exude their African roots in the subject's dress, which is often reminiscent of Egyptian garb. We perceive the characters of the artist's scenes as members of a royal clan.
Elaborate patterning for clothing or backgrounds appears in selected areas leaving many of the figures clothed in plain drapes and the backdrops softly blended. Hair, however, is given a lot of attention and, as the head's crown, is embellished with long and flowing or wrapped plaits, curled or wavy locks and draped head-dresses. The interior environments, within which the semi-nude bodies dance, play music, marry and share intimate moments, give the impression of regal dwellings of some sort at times combined with quaint landscapes with a surrealist flair.
Every so often we are unable to distinguish the indoors from outdoors due to the surreal transition of one environment to the other. But one thing is certain, the people matter most to Makonzi. The works on paper which date from early to mid-1990s depict slightly more angular stylised bodies whereas the more recent oils and acrylics on canvas give way to more graceful, elongated and wiry figures that sometimes curl into each other in the picture plane. They fill the picture planes almost completely, overpowering each composition that is in turn worked almost or completely in a monochromatic colour scheme.
INTIMATE
The portraits of musicians, the smallest works in the show, are more intimate and richly coloured when compared with the larger ones. Burnt sienna, a reddish brown hue, dominates the works as skin for the bodies and in some works, the objects and the backdrops. If not entirely monochromatic, burnt sienna is combined with blues and greys that augment the sombre undertones of the scenes.
Acrylic and oil paints are applied in short, even strokes that are either blended entirely or left to retain their individual hues in the shape of the hairs of the paintbrush. The latter brushwork recalls those of Jamaican painter Albert Huie but Makonzi's is far more calculated. The works on paper done in oil pastels exhibit linear shading on the bodies. These lines follow the circumference of limbs, creating ringed striations on the forms.
Double images feature in a number of the works like mirror images, and in the case of the portrait of a couple the duality is balanced by the opposite sexes. In the case of the mirrored images, we are uncertain as to whether these represent double personalities of the same self or stand as additional characters in the scenes. The harmony depicted appears to be a stillness pregnant with an aura of meditation and intimacy.
The exhibition continues.
