X
05:38Last update on: 12 Aug 2013
The Namibian
Mon 12 Aug 2013
SMS Of The Day * MINISTRY of Gender and Child Welfare, TEARS are rolling down as I write this SMS. The killing of women in Namibia is now like reciting a poem. Are we really getting the protection we deserve while women not being treated as part of this c Food For Thought * SO the Zimbabwe elections were free and peaceful and not free and fair? Bouquets And Brickbats * NURSES at Katutura Hospital must stop wearing those big plastic sandals at work because they are not the official working shoes. We want to see you looking smart and beautiful with your full uniform. SMS Of The Day * THIS nation is in dire need of a massive conference on housing. When we experienced a crisis in the education sector a crisis-control brain-storming conference was organised which resulted in the best deal ever for the Namibian child, nam Food For Thought * BOURGEOISIE has become a daily occupation if not the order of the day of the upper-echelons, President Hifikepunye Pohamba we urge you to revisit this unpatriotic geocentricism among your staff and the well-connected, for everybody to r Bouquets And Brickbats * COMMISSIONER of Prisons, can you please explain the strategies you use to appoint officers to certain positions? It is my observation that you are being fed with wrong information then you just promote individuals without making p SMS Of The Day * I THINK Paulus ‘The Rock’ Ambunda lost his belt because of this promoter and trainer. How can a world champion still be training at the Katutura Youth Complex where there is not enough equipment. I think they must follow the example of Ha Food For Thought * NAMIBIA Dairies are unable to match low prices of imported milk and this ultimately means the consumer will have to pay more for local milk. Look at the prices of the local chicken. All these profits are going in the pockets of a few in Bouquets And Brickbats * I AM pleased to hear that Cabinet has responded positively to the proposal of Namibia Dairies to support the industry. The restrictions which support the industry by reducing competition to ensure the survival of the industry is a SMS Of The Day * CEO’s golden handshakes. Somewhere on our statute books there must be a provision that if a board of directors suspends/dismisses a CEO without due regard to legal provision (substantive/procedural law) such board must carry the costs for Food For Thought * JACKY Asheeke was so right with her last column- why are the fathers of the dead children not being prosecuted? (Reference to the children who died in shack fires last week) Our justice system still protects men over women. In this cont Bouquets And Brickbats * ALEXACTUS Kaure, your column in Friday’s newspaper opened my eyes. One hardly finds impartial case study analysers in Namibia. Let’s not destroy the Polytechnic’s strong foundation (Tjivikua) as yet. At least wait until the transf
POLL
What do you think of the renaming and addition of regions and constituencies?
Results so far:
Older Polls
ARTS -
| 2013-08-02
Cowley Celebrates Women and the Wild at the NBIC
Martha Mukaiwa
From Kay Cowley
Kay Cowley is a sand sorceress. She gathers her ingredients from as near as the Namib and as far as the Kalahari to fashion fertility shrines and celebratory mandalas from all that Mother Nature sees fit to send gliding to the ground from bushes, trees and animals inevitably ageing.
Kay Cowley is a sand sorceress. She gathers her ingredients from as near as the Namib and as far as the Kalahari to fashion fertility shrines and celebratory mandalas from all that Mother Nature sees fit to send gliding to the ground from bushes, trees and animals inevitably ageing.
To her the Earth is a craft shop; a store of stone, sand, porcupine quills, dassie skulls, leather off-cuts, lucky beans and driftwood that can all be combined to create spiritual pieces of art that speak to her love of nature and our need to surround ourselves with positive and healing energy.
For a time her work will be at the Namibian Business Innovation Centre (NBIC). Office staff and visiting entrepreneurs will make their coffee and their photocopies under her elegant expressions of earth magic and anyone walking through the door will pass under a celebratory mandala that seems to smile at the water cooler.
Made of dassie skulls, seed pods, porcupine quills, seeds and dry flowers, Cowley’s wall art is pretty enough to look at, yet a mandala is far more than a decoration. Loosely translated from Sanskrit, the word ‘mandala’ means circle and it is said to represent wholeness and is symbolic of life itself.
Cowley’s is a celebration. It’s elements radiate from a dry centre in imitation of the sun and cast an invisible glow on the work area in a way that is inexplicably calming and that seems to explain the tranquil mood of the receptionist who tells me a little about the exhibition.
Though it’s quite strange to imagine; the NBIC redecorates every three months. Before Cowley they showcased the work of Gerdis Stadtherr before that they displayed John Sampson and before that they exhibited Papa Shikongeni.
With all the artwork integrated into their office space, the NBIC becomes a de facto gallery which treats its patrons and staff to work by assorted and imminent visual artists while encouraging other businesses, institutions and stakeholders to support Namibia’s thriving visual art industry.
In this endeavour and for the next couple of months, the NBIC will be showcasing Kay Cowley whose work is an earthy exhibition of her ideas about fertility, women and the environment.
‘Phases of Fertility’, an earth shrine in the NBIC hallway, presents a seed pod and sand imagining of a woman’s ovaries ageing as they would naturally. In the first the ovary is wide and full of eggs, in the second they are fewer and in the third, the ovary is shrunken and empty to denote a time when women are no longer as fertile.
To Cowley this process is beautiful and wonderfully natural rather than something that one should be sad or ashamed about.
“In today’s society we have to stay young and stay thin and stay beautiful but what happened to maturing naturally? What happened to those big Mamas with status whose lines and wrinkles are something to be proud of and a symbol of an admirably long life? Cowley asks.
Cowley’s celebration of women continues in her ‘African Women’ series which is a silkscreen, pop art inspired and stylised reduction of the African woman printed over and over, somewhat in the style of Andy Warhol. With their big hands and running feet, African women seem able to attend to many tasks while rushing around in a clash of moods and colours.
Women are just as revered in Cowley’s ‘Earth Goddess’ series in which she creates a winged linocut woman who is a creature of horns and tentacles which could also be the sea. Here she depicts the duality of nature which can be alternately cruel and kind. Horns notoriously connote something sinister while wings are indicative of the good of angels.
Paintings like ‘Euphorbia Moon’ which depicts a cluster of euphorbia plants on a blue background are simple and bright examples of Cowley’s love of the environment and reverence for the Earth’s plant life.
By painting euphorbia bright and alive and using spent seedpods, dassie skulls and flowers in her mandalas, Cowley expresses her respect for the Earth in all the stages of its progression.
Perhaps a little hippyish for some, her exhibition titled ‘Earth Love Crazy’ offers enthusing examples of the beautiful and thoughtful pieces that can be created with little more than what one can gather from Mother Nature’s Crafts Shop.
– For more information, please consult mnesongano@polytechnic.edu.na
To her the Earth is a craft shop; a store of stone, sand, porcupine quills, dassie skulls, leather off-cuts, lucky beans and driftwood that can all be combined to create spiritual pieces of art that speak to her love of nature and our need to surround ourselves with positive and healing energy.
For a time her work will be at the Namibian Business Innovation Centre (NBIC). Office staff and visiting entrepreneurs will make their coffee and their photocopies under her elegant expressions of earth magic and anyone walking through the door will pass under a celebratory mandala that seems to smile at the water cooler.
Made of dassie skulls, seed pods, porcupine quills, seeds and dry flowers, Cowley’s wall art is pretty enough to look at, yet a mandala is far more than a decoration. Loosely translated from Sanskrit, the word ‘mandala’ means circle and it is said to represent wholeness and is symbolic of life itself.
Cowley’s is a celebration. It’s elements radiate from a dry centre in imitation of the sun and cast an invisible glow on the work area in a way that is inexplicably calming and that seems to explain the tranquil mood of the receptionist who tells me a little about the exhibition.
Though it’s quite strange to imagine; the NBIC redecorates every three months. Before Cowley they showcased the work of Gerdis Stadtherr before that they displayed John Sampson and before that they exhibited Papa Shikongeni.
With all the artwork integrated into their office space, the NBIC becomes a de facto gallery which treats its patrons and staff to work by assorted and imminent visual artists while encouraging other businesses, institutions and stakeholders to support Namibia’s thriving visual art industry.
In this endeavour and for the next couple of months, the NBIC will be showcasing Kay Cowley whose work is an earthy exhibition of her ideas about fertility, women and the environment.
‘Phases of Fertility’, an earth shrine in the NBIC hallway, presents a seed pod and sand imagining of a woman’s ovaries ageing as they would naturally. In the first the ovary is wide and full of eggs, in the second they are fewer and in the third, the ovary is shrunken and empty to denote a time when women are no longer as fertile.
To Cowley this process is beautiful and wonderfully natural rather than something that one should be sad or ashamed about.
“In today’s society we have to stay young and stay thin and stay beautiful but what happened to maturing naturally? What happened to those big Mamas with status whose lines and wrinkles are something to be proud of and a symbol of an admirably long life? Cowley asks.
Cowley’s celebration of women continues in her ‘African Women’ series which is a silkscreen, pop art inspired and stylised reduction of the African woman printed over and over, somewhat in the style of Andy Warhol. With their big hands and running feet, African women seem able to attend to many tasks while rushing around in a clash of moods and colours.
Women are just as revered in Cowley’s ‘Earth Goddess’ series in which she creates a winged linocut woman who is a creature of horns and tentacles which could also be the sea. Here she depicts the duality of nature which can be alternately cruel and kind. Horns notoriously connote something sinister while wings are indicative of the good of angels.
Paintings like ‘Euphorbia Moon’ which depicts a cluster of euphorbia plants on a blue background are simple and bright examples of Cowley’s love of the environment and reverence for the Earth’s plant life.
By painting euphorbia bright and alive and using spent seedpods, dassie skulls and flowers in her mandalas, Cowley expresses her respect for the Earth in all the stages of its progression.
Perhaps a little hippyish for some, her exhibition titled ‘Earth Love Crazy’ offers enthusing examples of the beautiful and thoughtful pieces that can be created with little more than what one can gather from Mother Nature’s Crafts Shop.
– For more information, please consult mnesongano@polytechnic.edu.na
Comment on this article
www.weatherphotos.co.za
Windhoek
7°
24°
0mm
Walvis Bay
8°
22°
0mm
Oshakati
8°
31°
0mm
Keetmanshoop
1°
17°
0mm
Grootfontein
2°
27°
0mm
Gobabis
5°
24°
0mm
(August 12)
View more ...