Friday, April 4, 2014.

The Art of Churchill Ongere

Finally Freedom!!

Churchill Ongere (b. Kisumu, Kenya) immersed himself into art just as he was almost clearing high school in order to explore his imaginations and creativity. He began his career in 2009 as a sketch artist and later on transitioned between poetry, graphitti, rap, paint works and currently collage works.

Against The Quiet. 

Ongere is heavily influenced by the conversations around him and as he says, “I communicate through my art what I don’t hear people say during the conversations I have with them”. He attributes his inclination to works with political themes to being a liberally minded individual right from primary school to high school where History and Government was his favorite subject up to now that he is pursuing his undergraduate degree in Political Science at a top university in Kenya.

To The Cop Station

He points to the Fela Kuti, Ngugi wa Thiongo, Michael Soi, Kendell Geers, Wangechi Mutu, Eric Wainaina and Binyavanga Wainaina as some of the people he places “there” as far as art is concerned.

Everybody Talks

“I enjoy experiencing life with the aggression and angle an artist should. I am a creative. As a visual artist at the moment I am not really inspired by one type of artists say painters only. I think saying that only painters for example inspire you just because you are a visual artist is limiting yourself. Art is free, art is borderless, art is growing at a limitless speed and you don’t need anyone to tell you what art is not anymore. Art cannot be confined” he says enthusiastically.

Ready To Multitask

In this series of works where he challenged himself to use only two themes in mind, Red Lipstick and glasses and Freedom Chopped, he uses different types of paper ranging from newspaper, magazine and printed word documents paper cuttings in a unique way to bring out his aesthetically appealing and at the same time thought provoking pieces.