Blue

Madman or Genius?  Masterful Artist or Hopeless Heroin Addict?  Is it true that his body emits a faint blue light due to hisstrict diet of blue candy? These are not questions for which we mortals have answers.  All we do know is that Blue is a real life legend.Here we have displayed a work done by Blue when not under the influence of heroin or a blue candy induced sugar high.  Painted in 2005 on the walls on an elementary school in rural Tanzania, these two mural panels depict the nation’s history.  From left to right, one first goes back to ancient history, where this part of East Africa was likely the very cradle of human kind, the place where humans learned to hunt, make fires, develop complex forms of communication, and create their own pottery.  Toward the middle of the mural one sees the domestication of animals, a technology brought by the Bantu speaking people of West Africa, and followed by that, the rise of agriculture as we move to the second panel.  Moving into more recent history, we see a Portuguese slave trader, a German colonial governor, and a British colonial governor respectively.  Then Julius Nyerere, the nation’s first president, sweeps the colonialists away as Tanzania peacefully gains its independence.  Towards the far right we see corn stalks steadily growing as Tanzanians hope for a brighter future.  The forms and design are meant to capture the colorful balance and rhythms of rural Tanzanian life – both cyclical like the rising and falling of the sun and linear like the passing of time.

 

Blue’s Email:  mattraboin@hotmail.com

Blue’s Address:  somewhere in Peru

Here’s a Website Blue made:  www.tanzanianstudentfund.giving.officelive.com (not currently accepting donations)