Necessary Accidents

Gor Soudan, who was born in Kenya in 1983, came of age as a conceptual artist making art seemingly simple but swollen with big ideas. Alongside the likes of Peterson Kamwathi, he has been trying to make sense of the socio-political world around him in works that force us to search for hidden meanings. Soudan’s early work was dominated by charcoal drawings, often abstract, that evoked the fragility of existence.

Soudan, who splits his time between Nairobi and Kisumu, studied sociology and philosophy at Kenya’s Egerton University. It is easy to see how his education has influenced his art in works that seem to raise questions rather than offer easy answers to whatever is at stake whenever Soudan goes to work. That said, much of his work has focused on “the forms and materiality of handmade agricultural interventions into the landscape,” according to Circle Art Gallery, which has previously represented him. “Working with a collective of basket weavers and studying traditional weaving forms have informed a series of ink drawings, in which Soudan entwines patterns found in natural, virtual and architectural environments.”

TWR is publishing a dozen pieces on paper from Soudan’s oeuvre, which incorporates drawing, painting, sculpture and installation. Some of the works have previously been exhibited by Circle Art Gallery, but most were produced for a project with the Qatar-based Arak Collection. That body of work, titled Snakes and Ladders, was inspired by the eponymous board game and symbolizes “the arbitrary nature of life’s setbacks and advancements,” according to the Arak Collection. “This body of work explores the myriad symbols that permeate our existence – from digital icons like WiFi signals and emojis to the architectural and natural forms that define Nairobi’s environment. Soudan’s method, characterized by the use of charcoal and graphite rubbings, imbues his pieces with a tangible sense of texture and depth.”

The pieces are striking for their simple intensity. It can seem as though the artist is trying to clarify life down to its bare minimum, to its bare truths. But what exactly are Soudan’s truths? People are said to view his work and come away scratching their heads, wondering what his message is, according to a 2015 essay published by Africanah.org, an online platform dedicated to art from Africa and the African diaspora. That essay said of Soudan that he is “notorious for rousing his audience with poignant creations and then hitting the road before anyone dares to engage him in the arduous process of feeding an imagination-starved audience with token words that will only dissect, and detract from, his abstract creations.”

It went on: “Except when he is pressured, [Soudan] runs away from discussions that scrutinize his intentions and from conditions that take his audience away from the raw, intuitive responses he hopes his art will prompt. Dismembering his work into moves and motives robs the viewer of their instincts; of the voices in their head.”

Soudan himself has suggested, more recently, that his studio practice is experimental – in the sense that he allows his pictures to accidentally show him what he has missed or could not previously see. That’s different from being guided only by what the artist sets out to do.

“A lot of artists will tell you this: It’s finding a balance between accident and intention. In my studio accidents are very much welcome, even instigated,” he told an interviewer for the ARAK Collection. “So you really have to keep an eye out for what is not doing what you want it to do. Because it might be what you really need to focus on.”

Soudan’s work is as challenging as it is attractive, one reason perhaps for the artist’s large following among collectors at home and abroad. He has been exhibited in London, Tokyo, Lagos, Cape Town, and other cities.

Soudan stopped executing the ink works around 2019. He has since been making colorful abstract paintings on canvas. Some of them have been exhibited by the influential Lisson Gallery in London, a business relationship that marks Soudan as an important artist in Kenya and beyond.▪