Abit of art and crafts in Malawi..

Current location: Blantyre, Malawi

I have had some great vocational visits so far, visiting the Henry Tayali art gallery and studios (Lusaka, Zambia), meeting Roy Kausawho works for the Lechwe art trust (Lusaka, Zambia) and visiting secondary and high schools. It has been fascinating to meet actual practicing artists.

La Galleria

My first vocational visit in Malawi was in Lilongwe, visiting La Galleria art shop with Bob (Team Leader). It is a small art and crafts gallery, run by an artist called Elson Kambalu, unfortunately I did not meet him but did see some photos of his artwork. Elsons art is the most conceptual of what I have seen so far on the trip, one of his pieces was a collection of paint pots that were stuck on a board, with dried coloured paint inside each pot. This piece was titled something along the lines of ‘These tins are empty’. It made me think further about the meanings of the piece and what the artist is trying to say. 

Around the shop were lots of intricate and colourful painting by local artists, all with very different styles, some very realistic, some very large, some abstract and some mixed media based. I particularly liked a very intricate wooden carving of a crowd of people and also some batik paintings (I bought some!).On tables all around the room was lots of beautiful craft objects and jewellery for sale. Some of the craft sales goes towards an orphanage under the company name of ‘consol homes’ and other craft sales went towards a fund for refugees.I met two artists that work at the art shop, called Raphiq SandiKonda and Mathews Chimalito. They told me about their styles of work and Raphiq said he only likes works in an abstract way. I think both of them produce commercial art and crafts to make money too. This is the first vocational visit so far where I have seen art workshops available for the public to join in on, they said that children are able to come along each day to do art activities.