Visual artist Elia Shiwoohamba’s prints are easily spotted from the cheese aisle at Maerua Lifestyle Centre’s Superspar.
His signature linocuts, linoleum, cardboard prints and woodcuts are colourful, meticulous, a love letter to Namibia rendered in sure lines and with a passion for wildlife.
The 18-piece exhibition displayed above the heads of patrons casually sipping coffee, eating breakfast or savouring a spot of sushi is largely a cheerful one and simply titled: ‘My Namibia – My Nature’.
White-faced, long-eared and barn owls are celebrated in a series. Somewhere in Etosha National Park giraffes bow gracefully to drink and The Big 5 crowds a canvas in an offering where zebras roam pink plains and monochrome cheetahs are on their way to hunt.
Expressing a keen interest in angling, Shiwoohamba presents slick butterfly and African knife fish in colourful cardboard print. Towards the centre of the exhibition, Shiwoohamba gives thanks.
In a piece titled ‘We Remember this Day’, Shiwoohamba honours and expresses gratitude to visual artist John Muafangejo for his teaching and development of local printmaking. The scene is jubilant. Cows gather at the top of the frame signifying prosperity and wealth and at the heart of the canvas musicians dance and drum in celebration.
A neat, for sale exhibition that briefly delves into the country’s harsher realities in its depiction of rows and rows of mesmerising corrugated geometric shacks in a piece titled ‘The Ghetto of Windhoek’, as well as the scourge of poaching in ‘God Help the Rhinos of Namibia’, ‘My Namibia – My Nature’ also pays tribute to the land’s traditional huts, calabashes and woven baskets in-between a vivid visual glossary of the artist’s favourite animals.
Stop by Bean Tree Café for a good cup of coffee sipped below Shiwoohamba’s sweet safari until 19 February.
– martha@namibian.com.na; Martha Mukaiwa on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, marthamukaiwa.com
