Using a unique painting technique, Zambian artist Aubrey Chali expresses his thoughts on the value of tradition in the modern age
When people see Aubrey Chali’s artwork for the first time they often wonder what medium they are looking at. Criss-crossing lines and dots of different shades, painstakingly applied by hand without using tools such as a ruler or maulstick, give an impression closer to that of needlework or mosaic than painting on canvas. The creator named this style “contour linear technique” and later “Chalinism”, a portmanteau of his name and “line”. He describes Chalinism as a painting style: “consisting of closely distributed weaved lines of various colours and/or carefully and often evenly placed angled spirals that create an intentional, nesting motif, which on close inspection can resemble a maze but when viewed at a reasonable distance complete a storied picture”.
Chali was born in 1977 in Chingola, a city in the Copperbelt Province of Zambia. Soon after, his family moved to Mufurila, Ndola, and then to Mansa, the capital of Luapula Province in the northern part of the country. Luapula is a rural division where the main industries are farming and fishing, and many of Chali’s artworks depict scenes of agrarian villages and traditional activities such as people extracting salt from the earth or collecting water from the bottom of the well during the dry season.
In a statement for his first show “About Me and My Art” in 2014, he wrote that his works were a reflection on his traditional roots and a series of social subjects in his homeland. He explained that he painted people in their environments because he was curious about “where they have been, where they are and where they hope to go in life”
Chali has been drawing since childhood. There was no art curriculum in the primary school he attended, but he drew at home, first with pencil, then with pen and ink. His parents wanted him to become a lawyer, but he pursued his vocation as an artist while studying for a certificate in Human Resources Management and Administration from the University of Zambia. Becoming a professional artist is never easy, but perhaps even less so in a place where information on art is not readily available and clients are scarce. A turning point came in 2000 when Chali’s friend Victor Mwakalombe, an artist also based in Mansa, introduced him to the Zambia National Visual Arts Council (VAC), a nation-wide organisation founded by Zambian artists in 1989 to raise awareness for arts and to promote the interests of artists.
By ISAYA HIGA
This is an article extract; read the full article in Raw Vision #127
