Monday, 23 May 2016

Veronika Rovegno’s artworks see light

Twitter: @CarolAnande Instagram: @CarolAnande Facebook: @CarolAnande

Untitled with the yellows, 
orange & blues by Veronika Rovegno

Bold pieces of canvas lined the interior of a white room, in a newly constructed building in Masaki, Dar es Salaam. In a painting exhibition titled ‘Hide & Seek’ by Veronika Rovegno, a native Tanzanian who returned to her homeland in 2014, after a stint of 15 years in New York.


“I’ve been painting since I think I was 5 but I always used to paint for myself as a passion. Then every time I showed people my paintings, they were like ‘wowe I really love this’. I wasn’t confident enough to put it out there, for me it’s like my dirty laundry because I paint my feelings, my experiences…” Veronika 

This is Veronika’s debut exhibition in Tanzania; she doesn’t have any formal training as a painter. “I had no teachers they wouldn’t paint this crazy stuff, no I just love expressing myself...” Indeed by day Veronika is the PR Manager at Aggrey & Clifford Advertising Agency. 

Veronika posing next to her painting 'Hide & Seek'
as isthe title of this her debut 

exhibition recently in Masaki, DSM
I am glad she had the courage to put her artworks for the public as she definitely has a talent, the works she exhibited were produced since September 2014. “All of these were painted since I came back here, actually err ‘Hide & Seek’ is my time coming here, kind of hiding, kind of re-knowing myself and rebuild myself, getting to know things, you know trying new stuff and a new life, this is that phase of my life.” Veronika

Looking at her paintings here, they are organically or wholly abstract save for one ‘31East, 31st Street, Sometimes I miss you’, an expressionist depicting buildings & a night skyline in blues & yellows. Which the artist explains was the view from her apartment, while she was in NY. 

Untitled-with the yellow mustard background by
Veronika Rovegno 

at her debut exhibition in Dar 'Hide & Seek'
The artist succeeds in giving complementing colour arrangements, her use of acrylics, oil, grease & sand as mediums with the application of tooth brushes, sponge, twigs & the occasional paint brush on canvas. Intentionally invites the audience to plunge into the plethora of her moods.

She’s still to master her style as there was a lack of consistency in her works, indeed she put up this exhibition by herself, without the guidance of a curator. Paintings like ‘Untitled’ (With black trunks over a mustard yellow background); ‘New York Traffic Jam’, the expressionist ‘…Sometimes I miss you’; ‘Run Away with me 2 the greens3!’(The one with a dirty green organic forest) and ‘Untitled’ (with the bright yellows, orange & blues); well amplify her obvious talent. 

'New York Trafic Jam' by Veronika Rovegno
“The skill of a painter is often revealed in the strength and confidence of his line (outline), creating and delineating the various shapes in her picture.”-Neil Collins, Art Editor of arts-cork.com. It’s here that Veronika can improve as well by accepting the grand feat of working on a large canvas. Which requires extra points in composition (the layout and optical harmony of a painting), the composition in several of Veronika’s artworks can still improve. Bearing in mind a mistake on a big canvas is more glaring than on a smaller one.

That said knowing the rocky industry of fine art in the country; Veronika has certainly covered a significant milestone with her debut exhibition. For one despite her works fetching steep prices for our market (averaging at 2000USD), by the time I left the opening ceremony of this exhibit ( on the12th May’16); already three paintings were sold, one for 350USD, another at 1000USD and the other at 3500USD.







'31East, 31st Street,
 Sometimes I miss you'--

By Veronika Rovegno





Veronika (left) posing with 
her friend Joy Alliy at the opening of 'Hide & Seek'  


Veronika's Son adding visual interest to the already beautiful artworks by his mom at 'Hide & Seek'

Article was first published in The East African Newspaper http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/magazine/Veronika-bares-her-feelings-in-Hide-or-Seek/-/434746/3211990/-/2xv376/-/index.html

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