Aletta Shikololo

WINDHOEK – The youngest of the after-hour activities of the National Art Gallery of Namibia (NAGN) continues to embrace and promote creativeness among Namibian visual artists. The fifth edition of Happy Art Hour took place on Friday night which was well attended by art lovers and filled with fun activities, live music and a live performance.

Lok Kandjengo and Petrus Amuthenu were two of the visual artists that demonstrated their artworks as part of the ‘Luhamoho’ exhibition (a name taken from the two-week art workshop hosted by the gallery in September in which 25 artists were taken to remote areas to create artworks) whereby they showed the audience how they created their works and printmaking and afterwards the audience engaged and created some artworks as artists using the same techniques.

The casual and fun event successfully brought together visual artists that work in different disciplines, who produce artworks using different mediums, and a huge number of onlookers spent the evening discussing art.
Talking to Entertainment Now!, NAGN communications and marketing officer Annapaula Vakamuena noted that Happy Art Hour is one of the best ways of bringing individuals together, to learn, demonstrate and have art talks in a more casual way in which they are not restricted to touch the art pieces as is usually done.

“Happy Art Hour is a way to get people to the gallery in a calm and informal setting because usually when we have serious art events in the gallery, people don’t participate as much as they do when there is Happy Art Hour,” says Vakamuena, adding that people need to visit the gallery often and see what artists have in store.
She highlighted that the country is blessed with talented visual artists but they are quite underrated as people don’t take time to see and appreciate the value they bring to the art and entertainment industry..