Mukwendje’s Namibia

Hage Mukwendje’s Namibia is a place of his elders. His Meekulu rendered lovingly and serene gazing out at Restaurant La Bonne Table, casting her eyes over all Mukwendje has wrought and his father, a slight man whose eyes remain hidden below a hat, as he joins various characters in ‘My Namibia’.

The young College of the Arts graduate’s humble solo exhibition is currently on display at the Franco-Namibian Cultural Centre.

Presenting a largely desaturated and static collection in which the only hint of motion comes in Mukwendje’s lines, the exhibition is a markedly sombre one. Its disordered black, blue and red lines much like scribbles when considered in segments but which skillfully come together to add colour and energy to peering faces.

Mostly depicting women dressed traditionally with one carrying a bucket of water in a piece titled ‘Water Crisis in Namibia’, Mukwendje touches on national issues with an air of the perfunctory.

Less so in ‘Who is He?’, a piece in which an arresting pregnant woman with one eye slightly swollen seems to inquire about the father of her child or the infant itself.

With this image immediately followed by a young child clutching a scroll in the style of a diploma, Mukwendje immediately alludes to a happy ending. One in contrast to the young Ovahimba girl he depicts in ‘Worried’ who peers out forlornly.

Detailing the beauty of traditional and modest women in images such as ‘Kapaka’, the shadowy ‘Gender-Based Violence’ and ‘Beauty’, Mukwendje’s reverence for women, particularly the kind of woman he may have encountered as he was raised in a small village in Northern Namibia, is clear but not particularly reflective.

With regard to men, Mukwendje presents a pair in ‘Cattle Herder’ and ‘Emenhu’ which are contrasted in their urban wear and traditional dress respectively. Also showcasing a male face in ‘Smile with Your Eyes’, the exhibition continues in a relatively pedestrian display of skill and charming faces that say fair little.

Thematically more of the same of plenty of what we have seen before, to truly stand out in the crowd, young Mukwendje will have to reach for a little soul. A little honesty and observation that considers something as vast as ‘My Namibia’ and presents far more than a passable collection of pretty faces.