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Nottingham connected Arts & Culture 33 QUARRYLAB QUARRYLAB are delighted to announce that two Kenyan artists, Dickens Otieno and Mwini Mutuku will be taking part in the SEE HERE exhibition of contemporary art at the old Neale’s auction house building on Mansfield Road Nottingham in June and July this year. QUARRYLAB is a not for profit artists development and support programme promoting research, cultural diversity and new work in rural / industrial north Nottinghamshire. of living internationally, in addition to globalisation, technology and online expansion, exposed Mutuku to contemporary ideas, trends and art forms. This challenged conventional art practices found in Nairobi while it also fed Mutuku’s intellectual outlook on life and continual philosophical inquisitiveness. One result of this has been the development of Mutuku’s own signature style in which he employs the use of laser cutting – a process that is typically used for industrial manufacturing, though one that he has mastered to create his own aesthetic. The use of laser cutting, in which the laser beam destroys the surface it comes into contact with, creates an element of performance in which the act of destruction simultaneously becomes an act of creation. Mwini Mutuku grew up in Eastland’s Nairobi. At 21 he moved to Malaysia to study for a Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Professional Design (Visual Communication) at Limkokwing University of Creative Technology. Returning to Kenya in 2011, he acquired an art studio in 2014 at Kuona Trust (Nairobi) where his artistic career began. Initially focussing on painting. The experience In addition to the many shows Mutuku has participated in across Nairobi; Mutuku’s work was also chosen in 2016 and 2017 to represent Kenya in one of Africa’s most prestigious art competitions, Absa L’Atelier. In April 2017 the artist exhibited his work in South Africa with The Absa Gallery, in partnership with the KKNK. Aditionally Mutuku won the Prestigious Absolut Art Award in 2014, the Kenya Art Fair prize for Digital Art in 2015 and third prize in the 2017 Manjano Art Competition. The artist states, “Art for me is about connecting with other minds especially through conversation. In this way, I try to harness the ability of art to ease inter- personal exchange. To question ‘art’ is to question ‘us’ and for this reason I consider my work to be questions.” ADVERTISE WITH MOJATU MAGAZINES [email protected] 0115 784 6666 www.mojatu.com mojatu .com