For example, The Flute
Player, often taken to represent a Maasai, sparks confusion by those
who recognize that he looks and dresses very differently: "Maasai don’t
wear those earrings, or those beads, or have those features; Maasai
are not known to play flutes, either."
Other comments have focused
on the fact that the people populating his paintings, "do not correctly
represent any of the ethnic groups I know, but I’ve seen many parts
of your work in different places." Some viewers feel that: "Your
work is beautiful, but you are doing our culture a disservice by not
showing how it really is."
This common reaction
to Kitamirike's work provokes the following response from him: "To the
outside world, we are more similar than different, but we have tended
to focus on what makes us different. In my work, you see how we are
the same."
