Blended Kenyan and Japanese art: Mari Endo exhibits at the 2017 Kenya Art Fair

Mari Endo is one of the many artists exhibiting her works at the annual Kenya Art Fair from 17-19 November 2017.

Mari Endo was born in Tokyo, Japan. She graduated from a Visual Design Course in the Kuwasawa Design School in Tokyo. Mari worked as an editor for several magazines before her first visit to Kenya in 1988. She relocated to Kenya in 1999.

Mari attended a Print Making Workshop organized by the Kuona Trust in 2007. Since that workshop, Mari has been fascinated by the complex of the reductive approach of wood cut printing, developed by her mentor John Silver, who still remains her teacher-mentor.

Mari’s motifs are her surroundings and experiences, which deliver ‘silent messages’ and her colours are influenced by the unique mixture of Kenyan and Japanese cultures. Around people, she sees ‘antennae’ which are also depicted in her wood cut images.

Besides being an artist, Mari Endo has been curating several exhibitions in Japan for contemporary Kenyan artists.

Organised by The Sarit Centre, Text Book Centre, and the Kuona Trust Art Centre, the 4th edition of the Kenya Art Fair will be held on 17-19 November 2017 in The Sarit Expo Centre.

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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