Sophia Bounou

Madagascar

2025

Sophia Bounou Ore, 2024 Acrylic paint, acrylic paint marker, gloss varnish on canvas 36 x 48 inches 91.44 x 121.92 Sophia Bounou is an up and coming talent in the contemporary art s...

Sophia Bounou Gold Coast, 2024 Acrylic marker, acrylic paint, permanent marker on canvas 36 x 48 inches 91.44 x 121.92cm Sophia Bounou is an up and coming talent in the contemporary...

Artist: Julius Njau – Tanzanian (1961- ) Title: Untitled Year: 1987 Medium: Acrylic on Canvas Sight size: 27.5 x 36.5 inches. Framed size: 29 x 38 inches Signature: Signed, dated lower right Condition: Very good Frame: Framed in original frame. Frame in fair condition This colorful painting of figures is by the well-known Tanzanian artist Julius Njau. It is in very good condition and signed “Julius N” and dated 1987 in the lower right. The frame is simple unfinished wood. It has a few small scratches Tanzanian artist Julius Njau was born in 1961 Marangu, Moshi in Tanzania. He attended the Primary School Kilimanja. In 1972, a serious fracture of the leg caused him to spend two years in hospital where he began to paint and his career as an artist commenced. Julius was encouraged by a Finnish radiology specialist who supplied him with material and purchased his works. She also organized his first exhibition in Finland in 1983. The first works of Njau are very representative, inspired by the nature and the traditional aspects of his country. In 1984 his technique changed and his style transformed. Julius Njau paintings are characterised by the interaction of primary colors and the mixture of forms. Julius Njau's artworks works are part of the collection of Osaka Prefecture and Toyama Museum of Modern Art in Japan. They are also in the Frankfurt Museum of Ethnology (fur Volkerkunde), in the ZAK Gallery (Zeitgenossische afrikanische Kunst), Furth in Germany, in the Amos Anderson Helsinki Gallery, Finland, and in the 5th British Museum in England. In 2002, Julius Njau received a Nagoya City Hall Award and in 2003 the Grand Prize at the Toyama Prefecture International Competition at the "Sukiyaki Encounter the World" Poster Design Festival. Julius Njau is President and a founding member of the Marafiki group. EXHIBITIONS 1983 'Julius Njau One Man Show' Amos Anderson Museum, Helsinki, Finland 1984 'Group Exhibition' Gallery of Denmark 1985 'Julius Njau One Man Show' Danish Volunteer Training Centre, Tanzania 1985 'Julius Njau One Man Show' Tynset, Norway 1985 'Julius Njau One Man Show' Gallery of Sweden 1986 'Julius Njau One Man Show' Danish Volunteer Training Centre, Tanzania 1987 'Julius Njau One Man Show' Gallery Watatu, Nairobi, Kenya 1988 'Julius Njau One Man Show' Vogue Gallery, Nairobi, Kenya 1988 'Julius Njau One Man Show' Centre culturel francais, Nairobi, Kenya 1989 'Julius Njau One Man Show' National Museum of Kenya, Nairobi, Kenya 1990 'Into the Nineties' Gallery Watatu, Nairobi, Kenya 1990 'Portraits of Kenya' Gallery Watatu, Nairobi, Kenya 1991 'Gallery Artists' Gallery Watatu, Nairobi, Kenya 1991 'The Custodian's View' Gallery Watatu, Nairobi, Kenya 1991 'Julius Njau One Man Show' Nairobi Safari Club, Kenya 1991 'Julius Njau One Man Show' Nagoya City Network Centre, Nagoya, Japan 1991 'Julius Njau One Man Show' National Museum of Kenya, Nairobi, Kenya 1991 'Julius Njau One Man Show' The German Culture Centers, Goethe Institut, Nairobi, Kenya 1992 'Julius Njau One Man Show' International Gallery, Madrid, Spain 1992 'Through the Artists' Eyes' Gallery Watatu, Nairobi, Kenya 1992 'Rafiki wa zamani' Gallery Watatu, Nairobi, Kenya 1992 'Kenya Art...

As one of the last generation to remember a childhood lived in the desert hunting and gathering with her family, Walangkura Napanangka's paintings recall the stories of country and the location of specific sites in her traditional homeland west of the salt lake of Karrkurutinjinya (Lake Macdonald). Born around 1946, at Tjitururrnga west of Kintore, in the remote and arid country between the Northern Territory and Western Australia, she lived with her father Rantji Tjapangati and mother Inyuwa Nampitjinpa and later, while still a teenager, travelled by foot with her family over the hundreds of kilometres from their remote desert home eventually joining Uta Uta Tjangala's group as they walked in to the settlements of Haasts Bluff and then Papunya. The lure of settlement life with its promise of plentiful food and water belied the harsh conversion they would make to an alien lifestyle with its many problems and unfamiliar demands. The upheaval however, was ameliorated to some degree by the proximity of her immediate family including her mother Inyuwa, adoptive father Tutuma Tjapangati, and sister Pirrmangka Napanangka (now deceased) all of whom became artists. Relocated to the community of Kintore in 1981 when the outstation movement began, Walangkura participated in the historic women's collaborative painting project (1994) that was initiated by the older women as a means of re-affirming their own spiritual and ancestral roots. It was a time of specifically female singing, ceremony and painting, away from the gaze of outsiders and men folk. The huge and colourful canvases that emerged from the women's camp were 'alive with the ritual excitement and narrative intensity of the occasion' (Johnson 2000: 197). Within a year, Papunya Tula Artists, now established at Kintore, had taken on many of these women as full-time artists, revitalising the company after the deaths of many of the original 'painting men'. While individual women forged their own stylistic trajectory, these paintings were immediately distinguishable from the men's more cerebral and symmetrical style. They radiated an exuberant and vibrant energy, the felt heart-beat of women's affinity to country and spirit. Walangkura's early works, created from 1996 onward, are characterized by masses of small markings and motifs covering large areas of canvas. Her favorite colour, a deep sandy orange predominates, accentuated against more somber blacks and reds and dusky greens or yellows. More recent works show a gestural quality though still tightly packed with an intensity of geometric line work representing sandhills. In a sense this provides a strong visual and contextual link to the men's linear style as exemplified by the works of George Tjungurrayi...