Kamwangi Njue in conversation with Gor Soudan

Kamwangi Njue in conversation with Gor Soudan

This interview-essay about the work of Gor Soudan, currently on show as part of Beyond the Chrysalis (29 March – 29 June 2025) at Artron Art Center (Shenzhen, China) was first published in the catalogue of the same name, curated and edited by Nneoma Angela Okorie. 

At M2, you could sometimes find a place to sleep. You would make your bed, mostly a pile of cartons, a sleeping bag, or other recycled materials that had yet to find a place in a painting. Ghosts of old paintings watching over you as you sleep. It was my first time seeing Gor. Short and rugged hair. His voice fills the studio space, another poetry night at the studio, as the story goes. Mbuthia Maina, his old friend, an artist and curator, would narrate how, as I shared the sleeping spot with Gor the following day, we patterned the room with a sleep of movements, a tortured performance of the cold night. 

The second time I meet Gor, we speak briefly about one of his sculptures being on Keguro Macharia's Frottage cover. He tells me he recently wrote to the NYU press about it. The brutality expressed delicately through the weaving of wires by Gor immediately makes you forget about the chaotic birth of the material used, but also, as he expresses later, how he would rather not remember them. This is a metaphor that punctuates the schism of art and the artist. Otieno Gomba, co-founder of M2, thinks that Gor has a mysterious and perfect approach, primarily through the media he uses. Where Do Flowers Come From (2022) reveals care and determinism that comforts all the strife of our lives. Here, Gor rewards nature. He gives it its flowers of ink drawings on paper, an extension of his black and white drawings developed on washi paper, which is the foundation of his recent works.

 The third time I see him, he is turning a corner on some street near State House, limping from a bike accident. And that might have been a fourth time, now that I remember. He came to me one day while I was there, passing by to pick something up. The moment is distant and elusive. The fifth time I meet Gor, I arrive at Circle Art Gallery, the new spot, and wait for him. I call him. Gor says he had almost forgotten about our chat, ‘I will be there in thirty minutes.’ Twenty-seven minutes later, he arrives, driving an old car with a cassette player deck. When he comes, calling me, he is speaking or continuing a thought he had or something he had been thinking about or maybe an icebreaker about the characters of babies, as we are both fathers of girls, a fact he was aware of. He says I don't talk much. My silence, and people's astonishment by it, is a thing I have gotten used to. It marks a passage. Maybe he was wondering how the interview would go. A result that makes me function the transcription edit without prompts. Gor talked all the time. In the recording, my voice resounds as if he is letting out secrets. 

wanaenda wanaanguka anguka 

One kid, I watched her. She stays on Mama's feet. She is careful. The boy goes, he is solo, then he falls into some hole breaking things, reckless. Parenting at a distance is different. I enjoyed the few months that I spent with her. It is difficult to talk about because I don't live with her. I was parenting over WhatsApp calls. She is seven and will be eight this year. It is what it is. I am proud to have a lovely daughter that I created. Watching her glow is an absolute joy. 

I have been painting since I was a kid. It came naturally. I drew. I made portraits. Kuchafua chafua ukuta na makaa [3]. I grew up in Uthumo (Kisumu), a place called Mosqo Estate, Jamia mosque, a housing project. Mosqo had no nature; it is like Ayany Ayany flani. [4] It was built in the 70s for civil servants. It is like Buru, a middle-class vibe, though it has now deteriorated. The roofing needs maintenance now. I studied in Kisumu from class eight to high school. I went to Egerton University for college, where I studied sociology, philosophy, and English. I finished in 2009. Growing up in Mosqo, my elder brothers were hip-hop heads.

So, I grew up listening to rap from Ice T, NWA, and KRS-ONE. At the same time,
my parents were into Rhumba, Franco, and Mbilia Bel. I was influenced more by hip-hop. My name, Gor Soudan, is derived from the influence of rap names and alter egos. I have always been interested in identity and Black consciousness. 

Right now, I am doing a lot of sketches. My earlier work was sculptures and 3D objects. The subject is nature, not just nature as the thing outside. (Where) we are an extension of it, and it is a thing that is alive. Eastern philosophy, Taoism, teaches us everything has a soul, whether living or not, objects as souls, and other expressions of nature. I first connected with nature at Silole, a sanctuary in the bush where I used to live. At Silole, my output was the landscape drawings in black and white. But what I find important is how I could be more in touch with myself. 

I didn't want to engage in political work; the more you engage with that [the type of work you do] changes you. I was isolated. There, I was within nature and at its mercy. I got into my ideas, honing my expressions, taking out time, Na kuondoka kwa kelele mingi: Most of the work I made was just for me, that is the way I see it. Then, I went to Kisumu, in the village, mainly subsistence farming happens there, so it is still green. It is opposite an airport. It is also rocky and hilly. I started to express what I saw in the land through mark-making and black and white ink drawings. I spent time looking at the fonts, zooming into leaves. 

I do it with work, zooming in and out. It gives me different ways of perceiving it. A leaf is a whole system or organ, part of how nature is created. A body is made from a single cell, keeping in mind that this is how my art is put together. There is divine creativity; there is synchronicity. It is like music where everything is a note, ngoma ingine noma sana. It is like creation is continuing through you. I guess that is where the animism comes in. 

African culture or how people live on and with the land, how a homestead is built organically into land—the materials used—expressions, performances in festivals, all that is inspired by nature. Some people might think it is primitive, but it is just nature. It is not far removed like in modern design, where there is distance. You can say design is at war with nature, as opposed to global design culture, which is often far removed from nature and where art finds itself at odds with it. On the other hand, the animistic mind is to be in sync with nature. In my work, sometimes they link, and sometimes they fight with each other. Science is very authoritarian. It does not play well with other kids. Animism plays well with other kids. Scientific knowledge aims to conquer nature. My work is to observe, not to make the two as one. Technology has created something that is thinking for itself, and unlike humans, it can't die. It just gets better and better. Now, we are collateral. A forest on a road map will likely be collateral to AI. People are scared and conflicted. We are panicking, but we will adjust to it. 

James Muriuki directed me to Kuona Trust when it was a trust fund. Now, it is a collective, Kuona Collective. It had no studios like now, and it was just an office. It was great to be around artists. I spent a lot of time thinking about what kind of art I wanted to make. I have had several studios, at Kuona studio, Ayany, X. Then I started having a nomadic way of working. 

I have a studio in Kisumu. I wanted it to be a communal studio, but it is taking longer or it’s [happening in its] own time. 

Today, I'm delivering some paintings to Wells Fargo for a radio station in Kisumu. Urban Radio, two dancers for their audience. He was very particular about what he wanted. This is my first commissioned work for a friend. I have kept my style the same. The only thing different is the figures, from a leso. The same expression, but it is different. But I don't want to go in that direction, even though people liked it. It is colourful. They are based in nature. Looking at a flower bed, you see all those colours as if they rush towards you. I have been thinking of the form and what to do with it. This one is building on that. 

It is the backbone of what I am working on now. I am giving it more volume with colours. I find it hard to do both sculptures and paintings simultaneously. My first body of sculptures was a conceptual approach dictated by the media, an environmental topic, by paper bag litres. The subsequent work was very political because of the media I used. It wasn't intentional. I used wires from burnt tires in Kibera. They were from a political mass action. They were woven. They were put together piece by piece. You can see that in my drawings. I do my drawings like mark-making to form a whole thing, from sculptures to drawings and paintings, made of small bits to form some illusion and an organism. 

At Olympics in Kibera, there were just wires. I threw them in a mkoko [7] me, Solo 7, and guys from the neighbourhood. They were then taken to the studio. The landlord never forgave me. The house was very dirty, like a charcoal place. The stains never left. I think I was even stained. I just wove it together. Knot them, weaving over and under. The form is woven. It is woven form. Looking at that tree, you see different shades of green woven to make an organ. 

I returned to Nairobi last year, in March. I would love to move out forever. But all roads eventually lead to Nairobi. It is a reality you can't escape. I want to work. It has been a long time since I have settled. There were breaks. I have yet to find time to sit in a studio. I need to sit and work. I got an opportunity to go to a show in the UK. I just went to pick up my passport. I was denied a visa. They say I am broke. I need to make more money to go to the UK. I need more work and supporting documents. Once that is sorted, they might give me a visa. In the meantime, I just need to explore ideas in woven sculptures. Now, I’m trying to weave the colour. It is part of nature. 

Notes 

[1] Maasai Mbili (M2). Mbili is Swahili for 2. Maasai is a Nilotic pastoralist community, in areas around Nairobi city and some of its adjacent locations, some Rift Valley parts, and also stretches to Tanzania. Maasai Mbili is an artists’ collective and gallery located at Kibera, Kianda area in Bombolulu chini ya taa. 

[2] “wanaenda wanaanguka anguka” translates to "they are careless, as they fall" in Swahili. 

[3] “kuchafua ukuta na makaa” translates to "to dirty the wall with charcoal..." 

[4] Ayany is an estate in Kibera, which has better housing/development compared to the other estates in Kibera. Ayany Ayany hivi means “a place that resembles the original Ayany." 

[5] “Na kuondoka kwa kelele mingi” translates to “and to move away from many disruptions". 

[6] “ngoma ingine noma sana” is Swahili for "another wildly dope song," which when said is partly a joke and a wonder when Gor says it. 

[7] Mkoko is slang for mkokoteni or cart. 

Kamwangi Njue is a Kenyan artist. His essays, fiction and poems appear at drr, Norient, Sound of Nairobi, surfaces.cx, and Wanakuboeka. He is a co-founder, DJ and resident at THE MIST, Nairobi. He has loads of beat tapes on bandcamp as 7headc0.

Cover artwork: Gor Soudan, UNTITLED (Bush Studies VII), 2018. Ink on washi paper, 31 x 23 cm

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