A ROUND UP OF KENYA'S VISUAL ARTS SCENE 2023

To offer a round-up of the Kenyan visual arts scene in 2023 is to bear witness to a dynamic, ever-expanding art world that wasn’t always easy to track. Artists were busy all over the city and nearby countryside as well as at the Coast, Kisumu, Eldoret, Nanyuki, Nakuru, and elsewhere. There is no easy explanation for what’s been happening artistically in 2023 except to note that there are also many new ‘curators’ who have appeared on the art scene this past year, and lots of new venues and galleries where art is being displayed. That includes everywhere from basements of shopping mall car parks to private homes and top floors of local ‘skyscrapers to social media. The online ‘Art Calendar’, founded by two European women, has kept us posted about these innovative locations. The covid lockdown may have had a role to play in former art hobbyists who were stuck at home remembering their early love of art which their parents had poopooed, insisting their child become either an accountant, doctor, lawyer or banker. But this past year, we’ve seen former professionals coming out as either painters, print-makers, professional photographers, or fashion designers. Social media has also played a major part in propelling their artwork into the public domain. Many young artists are putting their art on Instagram where they are discovering that their art can sell. From there, they are gaining confidence to exhibit in public. This is when we meet them, but not necessarily in one of the established galleries, like One Off, Circle Art, Red Hill, Banana Hill, Tribal Art, or Gravitart galleries. We may find them in newer art spaces like Ardhi Gallery, Uweza, or House of Friends (HOF), the latter two being in Kibera. This is also where we meet many of the new breed of curators who look for these aspiring young, emerging artists to exhibit their works. One of the most ambitious new curators is Thadde Tewa. Tewa effectively took his first course in curating as a sales manager at the sadly short-lived Polka Dot Gallery in Karen. He loved working with artists and clients so much he started his own online curatorial work for artists, creating their online catalogues, and finding unexpected spaces to exhibit artworks of creatives who craved outdoor exposure and potential sales, but didn’t know how to exhibit by themselves. The number of new curators is countless and growing.. One of the newest curators to successfully attract a whole range of young creatives to work with her is Christine Ogana. It helps that she runs a gallery space in the basement of a building that her partner owns. It also helps that her Ardhi Gallery is vast and has already had several group exhibitions including those featuring a myriad of emerging artists. Some curators have taken short courses in that field. Goethe Institute has facilitated several of those trainings. Alliance Francaise has exhibited young artists and also held public forums that probe issues in the arts. But curators are not the only reason the art world has grown so fast in recent times. Nor is it simply because there are a wide range of new galleries that may have started before 2023, but BD Life found them this past year. They include spaces like the UM Gallery in Karen and Unseen on Woods Avenue. Two of the most important new galleries cum archives to open up recently are the African Art Trust, founded by Robert Devereau, and Nairobi Contemporary Art Institute (NCAI), established ed by Michael Armitage, a successful UK-based Kenyan painter who founded NCAI to collect, curate, archive, and exhibit wonderful shows in 2023 for multitalented artists like Chelenge van Rampelberg, Swoyia Kiambi, Peterson Kamwathi, Paul Njihi, Elias Mungora, and Morris Foit among others. Both of these art institutions reflect an enduring commitment to the visual arts in Kenya. The other institutions that have been ever-active are artists collectives like those at Kuona, Kobo Trust, Brush Tu, Mukuru, Wajukuu, and the GoDown. Finally, one cannot forget the role of advanced art education, especially the degree and diploma programs at places like BIFA, the Buru Buru Art Institute and universities like Kenyatta and Nairobi. All have made a big difference in artists coming out this past year with impressive skills, knowledge, and self-assurance regarding the quality of their art. Also nearly 70 emerging artists are also in the new Kenya Arts Diary 2024.