Kenya

_{OTIENO KOTA'S EXHIBITION}

_{Otieno Kota was born in 1980 in Homa Bay district. He lives in Kibera. This exhibition at Le Rustique is his second solo show in Nairobi.
 
“I started to draw at an early age, and have always considered art as my natural path.
During my chilhood, I used to draw portraits and landscape but  the “system” did not allow me to carry on.
With my qualities, I was told that I could do well in Nairobi so in 2002, I settled in Kibera where I opened a kiosk as a sign writer. These years in Nairobi were hard, nothing was really working well, I was confused on which directions to take”
 
“In 2005, we created this group called Masaai Mbili with the objective of sensitizing young people from Kibera community to art. We started art classes but due to lack of funding, we had to stop the classes but several artists from our community are still using our space...”
 
“My art is my way of expressing the ghetto where we live, it is the translation of Kibera and its people in an artwork, the patches you are seeing, the way I subdivided the bodies is how I see our lives: we are made of mabati, piece of lives, small roof taken from the shanties to express our lives, we are made of them, indivisible.
I am depicting our daily activities in Kibera, our behaviour, I don’t want to depict our lives as sad or miserable, we are coping with all the aspects of our lives”
 
“This exhibition is a great opportunity, I paint non stop, I need to carry on, painting is my life and I need to show my work”.}