Detail image of Naomi Wanjiku’s Women’s Dance.
The Exhibition
Clamp Light Artist Studios and Gallery is proud to present CYCLICAL RHYTHMS, an exhibition featuring the work of artists Naomi Wanjiku and Jose Balli. In the exhibition Naomi Wanjiku and Jose Balli’s work cohesively addresses themes of rebirth, fertility, rejuvenation, spirituality, and the cyclical nature of identity. The use of found objects and textures that represent their cultures and experiences of their everyday lives play a key role in their respective practices. Both artists harness ideas of functionality, fragility, the ephemeral, and the effort to preserve cultural identity through the exploration of objects or symbols that remain throughout generational transitions within a cultural group.
“My first experience with art was as a child growing up in a village in Kenya. The experience was from my grandmother and her friends… They taught me how to create the materials for my art projects (baskets). These materials came from the barks of local shrubs and straws known as migiyo and makongo, and we transformed them into strings by scraping and chewing. They also taught me how to add color to the strings. Finally, they taught me how to weave the baskets whilst being creative with the use of color. When I look back at these early experiences, I now realize that the major lessons that they taught me were that “art materials” were everywhere and “art techniques” could be improvised in response to the demands of the creative process and the project.”
Naomi Wanjiku
Hillarey Jones 