NoHo’s studio visit with upcoming artist Eltayeb
Eltayeb studied at the College of Fine and Applied Arts at the University of Sudan. His studies were interrupted when he was dismissed for political activities, and he spent the following years living a nomadic existence in exile, struggling to make a living and continue his artistic practice.
He is difficult to put inside a single box, as he is both an artist & activist, and could even be called an archivist
For the last 15 years Eltayeb has been living in Nairobi and is now famous for his inventive use of materials and wood, and his works are currently being purchased by renowned collectors and galleries.
Eltayeb creates on paper as well as wood, and two of his paperworks will be on display at NoHo House this spring.
Eltayeb emigrated to Kenya along with many other artists in the late 90’s, as a result of a tumultuous decade of active protest against the Bashir Regime. He finds inspiration from the past, and in the lives, and the tender stories that hold weight, which is why he often works with aged materials, once owned and used by others. The faces he creates have different shapes and colours, and the colours have lived previously in the found objects he works on, and are revealed when he scratches the surface to show what was beneath, layer by layer.
Like an archaeologist looking for lost treasures, he finds discarded wood, windows, rusted metal, doors and much more.
Eltayeb has exhibited widely including a solo show at TAD Gallery in Rome in 2003 and a group show at Ensign Gallery in London in 2004. He exhibited at the Toronto Art Fair in 2006 and Monaco Art Fair in 2010. In 2013, he completed a large commission for PwC Towers in Nairobi and was part of a group exhibition in Madrid at the Gazzambo Gallery.
In Kenya, Eltayeb has begun to explore the symbols and iconography that are used in product advertising. He says he has been, “catching on to this spirit of marketing and advertising and all the business transactions that go on every day.” His latest work is inspired by roadside advertising in Kenya and the resourceful ways in which people network.
When he is not scratching at wooden doors or drawers that have seen a thousand lives, Eltayeb Dawelbait entertains a stream of art lovers at his modest but enchanting studio in Parklands. If you are well behaved, he will offer you olives, Sudanese cheese and the best Arabic coffee in town. Behave badly, and the visit will take an enchanting turn when Eltayeb pops open something playful to pour in to your goblet.
“We are inspired by what we see, from everything around us. We are like kids; we collect and eat and play and we produce a lot of art and fun. Art is about creating anew”
-Eltayeb Dawelbait
His easy-going disposition and his bald-faced artistic talent have secured Eltayeb a snug spot within the swelling art sphere in Nairobi. Even staunch disciples of realism and the plein-air addicts of the Lamu Painter’s Festival have made an exception for his abstract portraits scored in to salvaged wood, with waning layers of paint escaping and new breaths of colour infused. Eltayeb’s artwork possesses a powerful energy, one that transcends its basic parts and proves, once again, that less is always more.
In the portrait series he has been consumed by these last four years, Eltayeb says he depicts the faces of the people he has encountered, past and present. Allured by old carpentry boxes and cabinet doors, each relic seems to stow untold stories and the lingering spirits of its former possessors. Adding minimalistic impressions upon these distressed tablets, either by painting or scraping at the wood, Eltayeb’s creative process complements his life story; He is engaged with a new life and the old. It is not by chance that Eltayeb’s artwork is about resurrection and the reincarnation of worn objects, all bearing hints of their former life.
Reconfiguring his existence one painting at a time, Eltayeb has carved out a nice world for himself in Nairobi over the last fifteen years.
