O | 32 (or to be more precise 0°00’ : 32°00’) are the co-ordinates for the Ssese Islands in Lake Victoria. The Ssese islands serendipitously lie at the centre of the geographical triangle of the cities in which I live and work and that inspire my work – Johannesburg, Lagos and Dubai. I first visited the Ssese islands in 1993, which at the time involved a day long journey from Kampala on a decrepit streamer. Then, as now, the islands represent a romantic enigma – the 84 islands scattered across a huge shallow lake that lies at the heart of Africa. Partly cloaked in forest, that give way to grasslands and sandy beaches – they are tropical islands that would appeal to any latter day Gauguin. But these island are also home to densely packed and desperately poor villages, the people rife with malaria, HIV, and the blue waters of the lake are un-swimmable due to bilharzia. The villagers fish, but smuggling is a more important economic activity. When I last visited the islands, fish stocks were falling due to the invasion of water hyacinths plants that were reducing oxygen levels in the lake, and the income of the villagers. This does not prevent the villagers revelling late into the night to Nigerian afrobeat, their faces illuminated by the blue screens of their phones. The location and this duality - reality v/s romanticism became an important inspiration for this series of works. Although isolated, the islands are as much part of the modern world as any other part of Africa. The images presented here are both maps worked till they are unrecognisable and imagined maps formed by the flow of paint. They reflect the experience of the world from the air but are also experiments in paint, which forms shapes that are indistinguishable from the shapes eroded and formed in nature. The works for the exhibition are worked on drafting film and printed photomontage on Sepia film. Given the lightness and durability of the works, they are suspended and “float free” from the ground as I often do – being at once paintings and installations.
This series of drawings and paintings arose from my continued response to the Africa cities which I visit and the vibrant and salubrious life of these cities. The title of the series brings together a number of current themes and interests. Bacchus – the Roman god of wine captures the essential theme of the series, boisterous nightlife which contrasts with the idea of the African city as a scene of poverty and alienation. By choosing a classical figure I am further locating this work and my self as a European, but who moves through African cities crowded with (and on ) boda boda motorcycle taxis. Boda Boda is a Ugandan term that describes the ubiquitous motorbike taxi’s that are such a common feature of African cities, and represents the spirit of youth thrusting themselves into an economy which seemingly presents them with few opportunities.
My painting explores places of current significance in Africa, but in ways that also engaged with the notion of romantic places. I first became aware of Ceuta, the Spanish enclave on the Moroccan coast, when I heard of the mass invasions that were being staged by migrants who had gathered on the hills above the medieval town. The press was full of images of excited, young partially clad African men who had burst through the city's modern defenses. When I searched further I found all these images of an ancient city and idyllic medieval castles. The works are bold and messy - combining imagined landscapes and sea crossings, barbed wire, barricades, medieval fortresses and Mediterranean colours.
I read somewhere that an artists practice should be a bit like a wagon trail across a prairie - the wagons dragged along slowly to some imagined destination, but surrounded by nimble outriders seeking possible new directions. My practice in December is always a bit like this - using the opportunity of a new location (this time Lacock in Wiltshire) and the absence of access to the normal materials and space of the studio to explore some new ideas and techniques. The works shown here are the result of this process. The miniseries “In another country” explores the idea of maps, imagined places, memory and how we interpret line and shape using 1950’s ordinance survey maps of the UK. Unlike most of my work these are all very small private pieces - never more than 35cm wide and 20 cm high.
These small works on tracing paper were executed during lock down - which forced me to abandon my studio for a couple of months, and also forced me to work at a very different scale. During this time I was very aware of how so many people were "inside" - and as a result of being able to work from home relatively unaffected by the crisis, but there are a huge number of people who generally work "outside' who were suffering during these times.
In Land Borders I explore a theme that arises from my life experience (as a development economist) and as someone who spends a lot of time flying over African countries. The works are all made from salvaged doors cut in half to form a diptych. In homes, doors act a bit like border posts between rooms - but unlike the borders between countries they are normally easy to open and pass through. This is seldom the case with Africa’s borders - which are chaotic choke points between countries, where trucks can wait for several days before crossing, and bribes are often the only way to pass. All of this massively inflates the cost of goods that people consume and often makes it impossibly expensive for companies to export. The works capture the chaos of such borders - and variously combine the marks made by truck tyres in the muddy parking lots, and aerial imagery of the truck parks and border stations. I was inspired to produce this series by the news in 2019 that most countries in Africa signed up to a continent wide free trade agreement. Trade, and export trade, in particular, plays a crucial role in reducing poverty, but unless these physical choke points are addressed and the incentives to bride and harass are removed, it is hard to see much benefit arising from the free trade deal, or the promised cornucopia of development.
We stand at the vortex of nature - in which our attempts to ameliorate climatic conditions and deliver the world from poverty and hunger is resulting in the deterioration of the very conditions we seek to control. This installation / exhibition considers this vortex through an installation in the abandoned Hotel De Ville (Town hall) of Ancien Bassam, Cote d’Ivoire. Ancien Bassam was the first capital of colonial French West Africa, and was established in 1893. Today Ancian Bassam is know for its overgrown buildings in which fig trees and tropical creepers are gaining assendency of the buildings - a rare victory for nature over urban development. The paintings installed at Ancien Bassam are about this vortex - and an attempt to capture the swirling history of man versus nature - what goes around many come around differently this time...
Night Landing - a series that explored the cities in which I work in Africa and the Middle East in which aerial images compete with paint and mark making to create images that are both maps and abstract paintings.
These small pieces are executed on plywood panels and were completed during lockdown. For someone who normally travels a great deal, being in a world in which all borders were closed was extraordinary. Despite having the means and a passport I could go nowhere! The colours in the series are loosely inspired by passport covers.
This exhibition of paintings, photographs and installations is about the 1860 km long Tazara Railway - that links the port of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania with the town of Kapiri Mposhi in Zambia's Central Province. The governments of Tanzania, Zambia and China built the railway in the 1970’s to eliminate landlocked Zambia's economic dependence on Rhodesia and South Africa, both of which were at the time ruled by white-minority governments. The railway provided the only route for bulk trade from Zambia's Copperbelt to reach the sea without having to transit white-ruled territories. The spirit of Pan-African socialism among the leaders of Tanzania and Zambia and the symbolism of China's support for newly independent African countries gave rise to Tazara's designation as the "Great Uhuru Railway", Uhuru being the Swahili word for Freedom.The Tazara railway represents the People’s Republic of China’s oldest and historically most important contribution to development in Africa. At its completion, the Tazara was the longest railway in sub-Saharan Africa, and the largest single foreign-aid project undertaken by China at the time, at a construction cost of US $406 million (the equivalent of US $2.62 billion today).The Tazara is sometimes regarded as the greatest engineering effort of its kind since the Second World War. Today the Tazara remains an enduring symbol of the solidarity of the developing world and Chinese support for African independence and development. When Beijing hosted the 2008 Summer Olympic Games, the starting point of the torch relay in Tanzania was the grand terminal of the Tazara. The artists developed the concept of the exhibition for a number of reasons. Firstly Richard Ketley comes from a long line of railway engineers and has always been interested in the visual properties of railways and the structures that support them. Secondly Richard’s work explores themes in development and following visits to Zambia and Lusaka he realised the importance of the Tazara line. Thirdly there is a lot of discussion of China’s current contribution to economic development and this exhibition would highlight this legacy back to the era of the anti-apartheid struggle.
