Africa Now! Emerging Talents from a continent on the move: Part 3

In previous exhibits Toke's Place presented Africa Now! Parts 1 and 2.

In this exhibit Toke's Place presents :

The Expressionistic Art of Beatrice Njoroge

The previous two exhibits disclosed the modernity and diversity of art in Africa. This exhibit provides additional evidence of that modernity.

Ms. Njoroge is a Kenyan. She states that her works, including those presented in this exhibit, are intended as a psychological look into the everyday life of all people everywhere, especially women.

She created the works presented here by taking random photographs of people and then sketching the images on canvas using different colors to show expressions and human emotions. Each image is the result of a plurality of photographs. I call this painterly collaging. Her use of random brush strokes and exaggeration of subject matter is obvious. Her images are colorful and highly textured because of her impasto technique.

The faces of her images have multiple shades of blues, greens, reds, purple, pink and yellow. The colors define the emotions expressed on the faces.

Overall the colors are cool suggesting the blues or melancholy. The eyes suggest despondency, acceptance and the absence of hope. The colors together with her eyes suggest big time blues. Of course this combination colors will have different meanings in different cultures.

The emotional gravitas of this image is in the eyes. The cool colors in the remainder of the image reinforce the sadness and pain that the eyes project.

This image suggests emotional ecstasy. The background is slightly warmer than the other images. The color of the lipstick is more prominent. The mouth is slightly opened. The eyes are closed. Are we witnessing emotional pleasure?

The cool colors of this image suggests subdued, hidden and/or restrained emotions.

In Ms Njoroge view, emotionally these faces are the faces of anyone and everyone. People relate to them. For her, whatever ones background, life is emotionally similar everywhere even though stimulants varies.

It interesting that that Ms Njoroge only shows a portion of the face in these images. I wonder why. Do you?

Ms Njororge wants audiences to react to these images, positively of negatively. She accepts any reaction except passivity. Reaction is the goal. What is your reaction?

Other images of this artist are at http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/yourgallery/artist_profile/Beatrice+Njoroge/81330.html

The Abstract Expressionist Art of Rosetta Deberardinis

Toke’s Place is pleased to present an online Exhibit of the works of Rosetta Deberardinis for your viewing pleasure.

Ms. Deberardinis

She kindly allowed me to visit her Baltimore studio. My visit was both intellectually and visually stimulating. I present here a few of her works. These images will stimulate you to visit her art whenever and wherever the opportunity presents itself.

She is an abstract expressionist. Some of her works are strictly action painting à la Jackson Pollock or a combination of action and color field. She admires Pollock but believes her images exude more energy, density and color than his. She says, “Color is my language. It speaks to me. I lay it down in a dance with the surface and watch it take shape and form in its own time. The objective is to use color as an agent to define formation, shape and line as an expression of today, yesterday and the anticipated tomorrow.”

The dance is always private. Only pigments and Rosetta are present.

A few examples of Rosetta’s impressive works are presented below. The comments are mine. Different viewers will see different things.

Summer in the City is an example of her colorist credentials. Clearly the push-pull of the bright highly contrasted colors (red, black, yellow and blue gray) is an important attribute in any narrative, emotional or intellectual, that this image might convey to a particular observer.

Summer in the City

Another images that burnishes her colorist credentials is Fire Wall

Fire Wall

For this viewer varying space and depth is suggested from the push and pull that the color relationships create. The gestural strokes suggest high-energy movement while the color fields underneath suggest relative calmness and stability. Chaos against a background stability.

New York From The Air locked my imagination into seeing an aerial map. For me then the image is abstract, but figurative. This is my shortcoming not the artist’s.

New York From The Air

Even with this bracket on my imagination I can see the substantial depth effect she achieved in this image.

Lemon Drops impresses my sense of rhythm through the swirling black gestural lines. The yellow pushes the lines forward providing a spiritual pulsation.

Lemon Drops

Much more could be said about the high aesthetic quality of this work.

Passion is a combination of color field and action painting bearing Rosetta’s characteristic gestures.

Passion

Passion is remarkable. It is a three-layer pyramid having fields of colors ranging from blue (tints and shades) to reddish (tints and shades). Gestural stokes of white (tints and shades) paints are all over. The impact is both spiritual and solid.

Significantly Sam Gilliam is a mentor. Rosetta says many viewers think the work is his. Passion is not for sale.

I completed this interview lusting after several of her works.

See more impressive Rosetta images, exhibit history, resume and other creds at

http://www.rosettadeberardinis.com/resume.html .