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.”
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