Richard Onyango, 1960

Richard Onyango was born in the western highlands of Kenya, near Lake Victoria. While still very young, his family moved to the developing coastal regions.

His father worked for the Tana River Irrigation Scheme, and Onyango became fascinated by the signs of industrial development in the African landscape — trucks, tractors, bulldozers, planes, and more. As a child, he recorded these impressions in a series of sketches he called “photo pictures” of “whatever my eye could see.” He explained: “To keep things properly in mind I had to draw them since I didn’t have a camera to record what I would like to put in memory.”

These elements remain central in Onyango’s paintings. He often depicts scenes that oscillate between admiration for imported technology and awareness of its fragility. Accidents, warnings, and calls for caution reveal a world constantly threatened by disaster and unpredictability.

This psychological tension is especially present in the works inspired by his relationship with Drosie. The young, curvaceous white woman appears in real or imagined situations that compress the fantasies Africa projects onto the West. Whether portraying shifting dynamics of domination and submission or the allure of a lifestyle associated with luxury and wealth, Onyango inverts stereotypes and exposes their inherent violence.

source: CAAC