In the next few weeks, the opportunity to take this new fascination a step further arose, and excited as I was, I took it up and decided to explore it for myself, all in the name of a high school art project. Coincidentally, I was recycling a couple of ideas that I had touched upon, earlier in the course. I was already looking at African art and how the human figure was such an important aspect of it. With that came the notion of shape and form, which I was going to represent using different waste or otherwise recyclable materials.
Consumed by imagination, equipped with a few tools and backed with research, I came up with the idea of creating contrast and comparison between two musical bands – A Giriama (local tribe) band versus an African American Jazz band. During research I came across the ‘African Drums Painting’ and really liked the idea of the exaggerated shape of the human form. This style of art brought such amazing energy and flow into the painting.
Some of the materials I used were: nuts, washers, binding wire, solder wire, soda cans, sisal rope and dried banana fibres.
Here, have a look at what I was able to create:
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Giriama band
The Xylophonist
The Dancing lady
Soda cans (drums) wrapped in painted sisal rope
The Cellist and Pianist
The Drummer
The Saxophonist
budding creations 