The One Off Contemporary Art Gallery has been on a splendid roll this month, almost as if all creative muses decided to shelter from the elements under its eaves.
Pathless Path, its current exhibition, salutes the handiwork of a wood and stone merchant, a quiet introspective lad called Silvester Mwangi whose deco and demeanor breathes and speaks of art and its stillness.
It is inspired by his journey into yoga and meditation which he alludes to be of benefit to his mental and physical health. The nature of it is experiential which in turn trickles back to being a force behind his inspiration.
In college, Silvester majored in interior design because of his love for working and manipulating spaces, but the clustering of the subjects in his class would force him to do weaving and painting as opposed to sculpturing which he loved.
“I always felt that I wanted something more intimate, as much as I loved working with spaces but if I wanted to do sculpturing I would have to do something else like art and design which would have had me work a lot with computers and I wasn’t particularly interested in that.”
After college, he was finnicky about joining the field of interior design. The love for working with spaces still never faded but the manner in which modern interior design was being practiced didn’t suit his palate.
“I wanted to bring a fine artsy vibe into my spaces, but I still had the passion for sculpturing and so I made a choice to get into art freelance as opposed to a 9-5 job. I looked for a sculptor just around where I lived, his name is Anthony Wanjau and I started working alongside him as a friend and as a protégé,” he says.
Anthony introduced Silvester to the sculpturing world, taught him the cogs and wheels of shaping elements, but he didn’t perceive himself as a teacher.
“He (Anthony) always said that he didn’t teach sculpturing but what he did was to just bring out the sculptor in you and that is what he did with me.”
Pathless Path carries a litany of variables in terms of style and structure. Silvester plays with wood and stone almost like a two-year-old would play with putty, without pressure.
The SilYogasanas sculpture by Silvester Mwangi at the One off Art Gallery in Nairobi on March 30, 2025.
Photo credit: Billy Ogada | Nation Media Group
His exhibition is simply a reflection of his daily life and his attachment with meditation and yoga. The sculptures and the carvings look like mere extensions of his essence, there is no difficulty or work here, all is simply mere play and perhaps therein lies its innate beauty.
Pricing artwork
The prices of his sculptures and carvings at the exhibition range from Sh33,000 to Sh 90,000.
Between working with stone and wood, stone is Silvester's first love because when it comes to expressing yoga and meditation, stone is a more preferred media.
He bears no attraction with the end product because the fulfillment he gets from the process of creating sates enough, he is an artist that lives in the adrenaline of the process
“Stone is largely used for spiritual cultures because it brings out the aspect of stillness and if one was to create deities or sacrosanct forms, stone is usually a preference. For me when working, stone brings more of an intimate aura and feel because of the textures, the roughness, the journey and the weight. There is so much to stone, some is mystical, some logical but all in all, it remains a formidable medium.”
For his wood carvings, he prefers to work with the Mikinduri plant (Croton megalocarpus) because of its availability.
“For me to get into work with wood, it was because of the freedom that it gives. There are certain forms you can make with wood that are limited when it comes to stone. There is a certain fragility to stone that with wood you cannot get for example, its easier to work on a carving that separates five fingers more easily with wood than with stone.”
For Silvester, stone dictates the tempo and the direction of the shape. One ends up being a co-creator as opposed to leading the charge.
“Stones may have waterways within them. You might have an idea when you start chipping off and just as you are about to finish, it splits into two because you hadn’t noticed a water way, now it has dictated the ideas and the direction it wants to take. Your subject has to now fit in the stones plans. Sometimes you get what you want out of it, sometimes you allow the stone to dictate, and you go with the flow especially when you are having creative blocks, you just get into the work, and it will bring something.”
Favourite media
There are no particular favourites to work with when it comes to stone for Silvester, his craftsmanship is largely dictated by availability of materials.
Bluestone is his most preferred media because of its accessibility in Nairobi but if he had the option, then granite would carry the day because of its toughness and its longevity status.
The Sunday evenings stone sculpture by Silvester Mwangi at the One off Art Gallery in Nairobi on March 30, 2025.
Photo credit: Billy Ogada | Nation Media Group
Silvester sees his subjects as personalities with a life of their own. It comes out in the way he talks about his carvings and sculptures as if the work of creating is a shared honour. For him, there is a sense of gratitude when working with elements to come up with his handiworks.
“We think that inanimate things are not alive but when you come to spirituality and the aspects of spiritual processes, you find that elements like earth, air, water and space as all having healing properties. If you get to a space where even the wind whispers to you in a certain way, you will understand deeply how to walk daintily around things people call inanimate, be it rock, stones or even wood.”
Pathless Path is a sermon in shared experiences of meditation and stillness.
“I hit a goldmine in my journey and so I am using my art practice to reach out to people out here about it.”
