Sane Wadu

Internationally, he is hailed as one of East Africa’s Big Three artists of the first-generation along with Jak Karatikawe and Wanyu Brush. Within Nairobi’s art circles of the yesteryears, (the 80s and 90s) he was branded as the ‘King of Allegory.’ And early in 2021, during the opening of Nairobi Contemporary Art Institute, he was the artist on show during the inaugural exhibition of the institute – the first-ever retrospective (first of its kind) of his 40-year long art career titled ‘I hope So.’

Born in 1954 in Nyathuna, as Walter Njuguna Mbugua, Sane Wadu had a deep-seated passion for arts and crafts throughout his primary and secondary schooling. Having completed his high school studies at Kinangari Secondary School, he went on to become a teacher and taught at Gichuru High School in Kiambu before working as a court clerk. 

Subsequently, Wadu ‘went into acting and writing plays for a theatre group made up of his former students that performed in schools around the country,’ he told the Business Daily. In 1984, at the around 30 years old, Wadu picked up a brush and ventured into the field of aesthetic statements, made more vivid on plastic paper and cloth – a visual path enthusiastically chosen. As he once stated: “I would not say that I became an artist. I was born an artist. I wanted to be heard, to be understood.”

And yet this sudden change in career came at the expense of his profesion as a teacher and court clerk. His peers, collegues and other members of his community would waste no chance at criticising this seemingly ‘reckless’ move terming it, and even branding him ‘insane’. 

It’s fitting then that Wadu countered his critics by renaming himself ‘Sane’ for his first name and ‘Wadu’ as his surname. Hailing from the Agikuyu tribe of the central region of Kenya, the painter’s second name comes from the Gikuyu word ‘wandu’ which means ‘people.’ Loosely translated, this adoptive name means ‘sane people.’

“Those things that you feel are locking themselves up inside, you should try to push them out of you.” Wadu stated in an interview. 

Less successful was Wadu’s initial attempt at gallery representation. Gallery Watatu, until then the top-dollar gallery of choice for most artists, became his target gallery as well. When he presented his portraits to the institution, he found artworks by his fellow contemporaries such as Sukuro Etale, Kaigwa Gakunju, Theresa Musoke, George Diang’a, and Fred Oduya. Gallery Watatu’s originally directors dismisssed his style as unrefined for today’s (then) tastes. Wadu readily elicited this fact in an interview: “When I first brought my paintings to Gallery Watatu, I was told my style didn’t fit with theirs.”

Put differently, whilst the artists exhibiting at the gallery had studied art formally, Wadu had taught himself to paint and therefore, this rejection, seemed albeit arguable, to carry the subtext: you dare not think that your unrefined style can compete with formally-trained hands.  To Wadu, this was a very strong signal of the pre-eminence of formally-trained artists over their self-taught counterparts. The result was no less than a comprehensive analysis of his style, and some self-reflection of sorts. “I took my artwork home and decided to figure out what kind of art they were talking about,”

But hardly would the self-assured painter with intimate ties his craft deviate significantly from his style. As Gallery Watatu’s ownership changed hands in 1985, so did Wadu’s reputation in the commercial art world in his subsequent attempt at representation in 1986. Unrefined and brutally honest, his artworks caught the attention of the new owner Ruth Schaffneur. 

Interestingly and quite striking, the mid to late 80s was marked by a shift in preferences by international collectors. Most collectors were interested in the kind of art that was designated as ‘primitive’ African art – the type Wadu and fellow artists like Ancent Soi and Wanyu Brush were creating. “It was ‘primitive’ African art, she seemed to be saying since she didn’t want to show or support artists with sophisticated art education (though she made an exception with Kaigwa).” This shift corresponded with Ruth Schaffeneur’s arrival – a collector of means through whom several East African art masterpieces accessed the European art market.

Subversion, not in the viscous sense of the word but in the thoughtful form of exploring multiple perspectives against the dorminant ideology of the academy, was very much at the centre of Wadu’s craft.  For instance, in creating the art itself, he would apply the paint much more directly on converse with a palette knife. Not content with adhering to academic expectations of formally-trained artists, he would, incorrectly, albeit deliberately, sign against his artworks. Sometimes wrongly spelling his name, other times writing letters backwards.

Apparently inexhaustible and aware of the inhospitable terrain visual artists faced in their struggle for self-narration and self-representation, he would, in 1995, extend subversion of a similar kind into artist advocacy. He is the founding member of Ngecha Association of Artists, the first on the list of the 40-member collective along with his wife and artist Eunice Wadu, as well as Wanyu Brush and Chain Muhandi, fellow Kenyan luminaries. Pitching themselves against the academics, Wadu envisioned it as a collective to provide training opportunities and a community around the creation of art for generations of artists especially the self-taught ones from Ngecha village. Ultimately, it’s these subversive acts that led to the making of the artist’s name.

Many an art critic has pointed out how the 80s and perhaps the early 90s were experimental years for Sane Wadu. But despite experimenting with various stylistic approaches, it’s also the time when he created some of the most celebrated works emblematic of his oeuvre like Bless This Our Daily Bread (1984), Afraid of Being (What One Is) (1988), and Black Moses (1993). Politics, culture, social justice, gender and biblical subjects are some of the themes that thread through those artworks and several others that he produced in the ensuing years.

Unfortunately, back then, a creative’s dreams were thwarted by an increasingly repressive Moi era as public subvention for the arts was relegated. Thus, visual commentary that was in some way unpopular with the ruling elites and the affluent would affect your social mobility – perhaps even bring your career to a screeching halt. But amidst all these turbulence, Sane Wadu stood out among a few of the visual voices that provided reproving dissections of the autocratic regime through his craft like in Black Moses.

For the most part, his works employ allegories in getting his message across to his audience. Whether moral, spiritual or political, his allegorical depictions are primarily made in an abstract form. And yet it’s an aesthetic style that remained fluid throughout his painting life – so much so that it resists classification. A description by Indigo Art Gallery illustrates the point while providing a fitting analysis of his style which;

‘alternated between structured single-point perspective and abstract, dreamlike compositions and forms. He has moved between a tight, impressionistic style and flowing, Surrealistic abstracts – sometimes applying paint in constrained impasto,and sometimes in bright, fluid washes.

Ever a dynamic duo, and not only matrimonially, but also in the realm of visual arts, Sane Wadu and Eunice Wadu founded, in 2010, The Sane Wadu Trust. Now more than a decade of institutional life, the non-profit establishment provides youths with opportunities to redirect their energies in in art-based activities under the stewardship of Wadu. Based in Naivasha, the influential artist mentors and incubates up-and-coming artists, providing them with a opportunity he never had – which underlines the continued importance of mentorship especially financial in an artist’s budding career.