Nairobi’s art industry is expanding as more spaces are opening up to give artists an opportunity to learn and create art. One of the recently opened spaces is Patrick Mukabi’s Dust Depo, currently at the Railway Museum in Nairobi. I was able to speak with some of the artists, here are the excerpts.
Mazemu WilburWilbur started art in 2002 at Makerere University. He practiced art with Mike Labong’o from Jinja, Uganda. In 2013, he joined Patrick Mukabi at the Godown Arts Centre before moving to the Railways Museum gallery.
Wilbur’s work is semi-abstract as it was the kind of art he was exposed to while in Uganda. His artwork highlights different aspects in daily life and he uses bright colours to bring out his message.
In African Lady, he incorporates the face of a woman in the image of Africa. His combination of lines and mixture of colour gives the painting the desired look. The final touch is the addition of a flower.
African Lady by Wilbur
“I know most ladies love flowers, that’s why I had to add it in this painting,” Wilbur says, adding that his process depends on the subject of the painting.
“I start with the sketching the subject on my sketch book before transferring it onto canvas,” he adds.
One thing that stands out with the paintings is the colours he uses. For him, this is a deliberate choice because he is trying to brighten up the world.
“This world is a bit dull and I want to make it move with colour,” he says.
The same is seen in Musician, a painting of an artiste playing the adongo. In the background Wilbur uses maroon and places two women going on their business while in foreground he focuses solely on the musician. It looks like an image straight from a busy street without the noise.
David MainaKnown as Daumin, Maina was born and raised in Nairobi, studied Information systems and technology in USIU, but has been drawing since he was younger. He never had training for art but picked up from YouTube and from watching other people doing it. He started working on art seriously after completing his studies.
Maina combines a series of styles in his art, making it stand out.
“I still do not have a proper name for my kind of art, but it is a fusion of geometry, dots and hidden words,” he says.
Most of his works are portraits as he is able to capture the emotions of what he is trying to express on the subjects. He is not as big on colour as he only uses them as a background of the actual piece he is working on.
Maina ended up at the Dust Depo to get mentored on art and it has since become his space to conceptualise and create art.
He is currently working on a portrait about not despairing when you are downcast. In his own style, he uses his geometry to hide his message.
“Sometimes the hidden words speak about the picture and other times I just hide words to give the people something to look at. Most people usually do not realise there are hidden words in the painting until I tell them, and they are shocked,” he says.
This is evident in Faith, a portrait on a mustard yellow background. As in almost all his paintings, Maina uses black in this image to accentuate the subject.
One of his other projects is to capture the alphabet on canvas using his style. This is seen in “A” and “B”, where he uses graffiti to impose the letters on a background with lines or dots. In this series, he uses white on the letters to make it stand out.
“This is a combination of the things I like — graffiti, pointillism, and geometry,” he adds, saying that most of his works are done on big canvases as a way to challenge himself.
Eric ‘Sticky’ MureithiEric has been an artist for the last three years, focusing on pop and funky art. This was inspired by his background as a dancer, and his love for hip hop and graffiti, which he incorporates in his paintings.
“For me, art is therapy. It is a way of me losing what I am thinking about, making decisions and improving myself. It is about life and not about selling art,” he says.
His artworks are inspired by many things around him. In one of his untitled pieces, he was inspired by a picture in the magazine and the bright colours it was captured in and decided to have it on canvas.
He starts his painting from the background, by using a dirty mix of colours.
“I do not plan the colours I use, I just go wild on the canvas,” he adds, saying he works in layers to give it the effect he wants.
Stick'y work on canvas
For Sticky, canvas is not the only surface he works on. He has worked on shoes and on denim.
“For me, there is no difference in these materials. It is just that the space on shoes and denim is limited and not as wide as canvas,” he says, adding that he used fabric paints and a bit of acrylic on the denim.
Sticky's art work on shoes
He ended up at the Dust Depo gallery by sheer luck, having met Mukabi at the Godown a while back. He expressed his interest in art and being mentored and he has not looked back since.
Tesh Naitiemu
Tesh started painting on and off since last year because of school. She is currently studying civil engineering. Since she is a newbie, she still has not settled on a specific style of painting.
“I am trying a number of styles at the moment, and not settling on one yet,” she says.
Tesh's Saxophone
However, she is experimenting with light and shadow effect as seen in Saxophone. The painting features a silhouette of a saxophonist beside a flight of stairs. The combination of the light and dark is well balanced and distributed to achieve the effect.
One thing that stands out about her painting is her use of textured canvas. “I use sand to prepare the canvas, to give it a more authentic feel,” she says.
Tesh gets her ideas from many places and situations. “I can capture the idea, but I find that as I am painting other ideas come to me and I incorporate them in the painting,” she adds.
Tesh's Ecstasy
Most of her subjects are women because she believes women are more interesting and she uses red and its variation to capture the elements of passion and desire in her subjects as seen in Ecstasy.
Clavers OdhiamboThis 20-year-old artist is taking the industry by storm with his realism. With about two and a half years experience, Clavers never knew he wanted to be an artist until he was in high school, where art and design was offered as a course.
“I picked it up when I was in form two and developed the skill until form four, even though the much we could do in high school was limited in terms of resources and outreach to the outer world,” he says, adding that he developed much of his skills outside school.
In 2013, he took his time in improving his skills, thanks to the internet and exposure to different artists. He was inspired by artists whose works look photographic, with the skill to get the image as realistic to the eye as possible on canvas.
He started off with pencil drawings in high school and was very good with lines and proportions. He then moved on to acrylic on paper and after a while opted to move on to canvas.
“I did my first canvas painting in October 2013, and since I did it, the reaction I got told me that I was on the right track,” he says.
Claver's Elephants
According to him, his paintings from early 2014 to today shows a sort of growth as he is still perfecting his skill. “One thing I am keen about in my artworks is texture, mostly skin textures. I love working with human subjects,” he adds, saying that he only works on a series of connected art works instead of random pieces.
“This gives me the identity as someone who can connect the artwork to you without having you there,” he says.
His current project is working on a series of artworks for the Red exhibition he is set to hold in February with Richard Kuria at the Alliance Francaise.
“It will be an exhibition of realism and hyper realism,” he informs us.
In preparing his canvas, Clavers normally uses emulsion as a primer, but one day, after it was inadequate he was forced to find a different way to prime his surfaces.
“We did not have enough emulsion here, but there was a lot of acrylic paint. I decided to use acrylic to prime my canvas, and paint using oil. It worked so well that I dropped painting on white emulsion completely,” he says, adding that the average work takes him about two or three days to complete. “I used to take a week, working daily to complete a piece, but I had to train myself to shorten the time without sacrificing the quality,” he adds.
This level of skill can be seen in his paintings Elephants and Chinua Achebe.
Claver's Achebe