Dear Friends, NATC invites you to an evening of technology and art on Tuesday, 14 March at 4 PM (Wednesday is a public holiday) at the NATC office on Randall Street. Come and see art works created in response to the question “Technology: Hurting or Helping?” You’ll have a chance to hear presentations by the artists themselves. The paintings on display at our office are also featured in our 2017 Calendar, copies of which will be available at the Event. Regards, NATC
The art is profoundly contemplative, highly conceptual in
its interpretation of the question “Technology: Hurting or Helping?” and also
quite rooted in local artistic motifs and scenery. They paintings are not only
stunning to look at but also demonstrate a very deep understanding of
technology and social media and, how technology is part of urbanisation.
Tom Williams’ painting is a beautiful portrait of a small
boy holding a piece of fruit or some object and using it as a telephone. He’s
smiling with great, expressive eyes and, is seemingly relaxed in his
environment. In the background you can see buildings, a tower, a couple of
market women with goods balanced on their heads and red dirt roads.
Duke Appleton’s painting is actually the winner from the
2015 Art Competition and, was featured as NATC’s Christmas card. This year the
format has changed and we have decided to feature several paintings in a
Calendar to be distributed to clients and friends. We decided to include Duke’s
remarkable painting. It is a highly detailed panoramic view of a city in
Liberia, encompassing both the present and future. In the foreground we have a
fishing boat, a market woman, a student studying on his laptop, and in the
background we have a train in a very modern urban setting.
Michael Michelle has 2 paintings featured in the Calendar
and both are quite stylistic. For March, the painting shows an elegant lady
standing, holding mobile devices next to a telcom tower. For November, we have
some children huddled around a computer in a rural setting. It’s a very
stylistic rendering.
Sanoe Karamo’s painting is absolutely stunning: we have 2
girls from an urban and rural setting chatting to each other on a messaging
platform across distance and time. They are shown against the Planet Earth and,
we have a ground view of the girls as well as a global view of the planet with
a satellite helping the devices to communicate with each other.
Using a similar concept, Abu Fofanah’s painting shows the
Planet Earth from Africa and then North America and how the two continents are
able to communicate with each other. Abu Fofana’s painting is featured for the
month of May.
Mansa Mason’s painting is delightful not only for the
portrait of a beautiful girl but also for its highly conceptual and complex
interpretation of technology. This piece is featured in the month of June. We
can see quite a few examples of the way technology can be harmful: from thieves
coming out of the laptop’s screen (hacking, cyber crime..?) to how devices are
replacing teachers in school (the privatisation of primary education in
Liberia, a pilot which was launched in 2016) and, how technology could be
replacing jobs. Mansa is extremely skilled and expressive at merging humans and
technological devices: a couple of heads coming out of the screen to a hand
emerging from an iPad. There’s a lot of imagery and concepts in this painting
and, still it manages to be visually striking.
Togar Wilfred’s school scene shows the typical school
building one can see in Liberia. The school is in the back while we have wide
spaces of grass and field in the foreground. There’s also a small palava hut in
the back and a dense forest. And, we know we are in Liberia because of the
flag. And don’t miss the telcom tower either. IT’s small but you can see it.
The main point of interest is the girl chatting to someone on her mobile phone
while a field worker is trying to hand her some books. What do you think this
symbolises?
Amos Boyce’s painting was also one of the paintings in our
2015 Art Contest. It’s a beautiful dreamy painting thanks to its strokes of
yellow, pink, purple and red. We have a teacher and faint outlines of students.
We have a worker climbing up a telcom tower (or is it theft of the LEC?). We
have a fishing boat. We have palava huts sporting V-SAT dishes. We have a
couple of market women, both on their cell phones. And we have the beautiful
Liberian flag. A very beautiful piece indeed!
Brima Wolobah’s piece is featured for September. It’s also a
dense and complex painting that is highly conceptual and, you have to spend
quite a bit of time studying it. In parts it looks like an optical illusion. It
looks like we having a roving magnifying
glass moving across the painting. We have internet cables jutting out in
the centre, hinting to a hack? There’s an open Messenger pace. We have students
and the familiar urban and rural motifs. It’s a very impressive piece.
Edward Blackie’s piece is simple and elegant. It shows one
young person sitting on his desk and being able to access Google Mail,
Facebook, YouTube, Chrome, Google Plus and Yahoo all from one device! Imagine
how far advanced our computers have become and how small and mobile they are.
The last piece is Tumban Tweh’s, who has also written a
narrative accompanying his piece. The painting features a hand holding a gun.
