1963–present
Joseph Bertiers
Joseph Bertiers (born 1963) began at eighteen by painting signs for bars, butchers and beauty parlours, and for one of them invented a character called “Mr. No Credit”. He later became a painter and sculptor from Nairobi, making paintings about political history and the news and life-size sculptures from scrap metal. In 2006 he was selected for Dak’Art, the Dakar Biennale.
Biography
His first works were signs.
At eighteen Joseph Bertiers was painting the fronts of local bars, butchers’ shops and beauty parlours, and for one commission he invented a character called “Mr. No Credit”. The figure was meant to discourage customers from asking for free services.
He was born in 1963 in Nairobi. His birth name is given in different ways: Joseph Mbatia Njoroge or Joseph Mbatia Bertiers. He studied at the YMCA Craft Training Centre and began as a sign painter. Nothing is known about his teachers, the length of his studies or his first exhibitions, and I will not try to fill in the gaps. The trade of commercial painting, it seems to me, explains much about his manner: posterlike clarity of image, humour, and the ability to hold a subject on one large gesture. Later the sign-painting practice gave way to easel painting. His pictures are built on news and political history: they show television screens, crime reports, the trial of the former American football player Simpson, the death of Princess Diana, boxing, Bill Clinton, African politics. The subjects are treated with humour, but they are an analysis of the international agenda, not an illustration of it. At the same time he made objects and installations; the most conspicuous are the life-size sculptures assembled from scrap metal.
In 2006 Bertiers was selected for Dak’Art, the Dakar Biennale of contemporary African art. In the same year he won first prize at a national contemporary art competition organized in Nairobi by the Alliance Française and the Goethe-Institut. His work has been shown in Africa, Europe and North America; the list of exhibitions is not known.
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