Why Google chief is investing big in Kenyan artists

Ever since December 2014, Charles Murito has been inviting local artists to exhibit their work at a space of his choice on a monthly basis.

At the beginning, the exhibitions were essentially private as they took place in his new home in Kileleshewa where personal friends came to see — and potentially buy — the artworks.

So successful were these shows, both for the artists and the Kenyans who were often just as enamoured with the works of artists like Patrick Kinuthia, Adrian Nduma and Patrick Mukabi that he decided to take his end-of-month Saturday programme public.

That’s how it happened that this Saturday afternoon from midday a small but select group Kenyan painters will showcase their ‘Art in the Den’ of the new Dusit D2 Hotel off Riverside Drive in Westlands, Nairobi.

Mr Murito, the Google Kenya country manager, has agreed with Dusit general manager Michael Metaxas to let the artists take over the spacious conference hall once a month so the public can meet the artists, see their art and potentially buy it at prices that aren’t inflated by middlemen.

“What I especially like about the arrangement is that the artists will be able to go home with every penny they make from the sale of their art,” said Mr Murito, who besides being an avid admirer and collector of Kenyan art is also in charge of one, if not the leading IT company in the world.

It’s also a brand name that is so popular the public has even turned it into a verb!

For him, art is a hobby as well as a passion that’s inspired him to cover the walls of his new home with works by up-and-coming young artists like Nduta Kariuki, Waweru Gichuhi, and Teddy Mwai as well as by more acclaimed painters like Mukabi, Nduma and Kinuthia.

Not that he was a voracious art lover before he returned to Kenya in 2013 after living abroad for nearly two decades, first in the United States where he went to university and subsequently worked for Warner Brothers, then in the UK from where he would commute all around Africa and the Middle East for MTV, and finally back in Kenya where his background of working in media, marketing, management and technology made him the prime candidate to spearhead Google’s growth.

But being someone whose professional career has often involved his uncanny ability to spot untapped talent, he was quick to see the unsung artistry and immense potential of Kenyan creative minds, starting with Patrick Kinuthia, whose vivid and colourful portraits first caught his eye.

Through Mr Kinuthia he got to meet many other local artists who were often struggling, which is why he’s wanted to help them out.

“I’m well aware I wouldn’t be where I am today if I hadn’t been helped by people who became my mentors,” said Mr Murito, who made own way to the US without scholarship or a sponsor, but rather worked his way through Woodbury University in Burbank, California, doing a myriad of jobs.

But he admits he might not have made it through if it hadn’t been for mentors like the dean of the university's business school, Richard King who he met by serendipity.

“I would’ve had to drop out if he hadn’t helped me get a partial scholarship and a school loan in my last year,” Mr Murito said.

So he’s especially sensitive to the financial burden that many gifted artists struggle under, which is one reason he’s opened up a space where artists don’t pay a penny either as a commission to a middle man on every sale nor do they pay for the exhibition space since he makes all those arrangements.

It is a set-up that is rare in Nairobi’s art world but Mr Murito is happy to do it.

Unlike most people who provide space for artists to exhibit their work, Mr Murito isn’t in the art world to make money.

However, he admits he gets immense satisfaction in being part of Kenya’s emerging art market, especially as experience has shown him there’s an immense need to “change the narrative” about Africa and he sees the artists as being instrumental in making that change happen.

“Art combined with technology can be the means of transforming the misconceptions about the region,” he said.

But he’s also aware that artists need to treat their art as a business and means of earning a living. Otherwise, they will forever be under the control of middlemen.

There’s nothing shameful or demeaning for artists to make money from their art, he said. If they don’t take ownership of their careers, someone else will,” he added.

One way the artists can take charge of their art is by meeting their prospective buyers face-to-face without a middle man intervening, Mr Murito said.

“That relationship between the artist and the client is key,” according to a man whose job for many years was that of a marketing strategist, particularly in media.

The one thing Mr Murito expects from the artists is that they will mentor the next generation of emerging creatives. That is one reason why he’s set up a corner of the conference hall where artists like Mukabi teach children how to paint and draw — in a way similar to what he does on his Saturday morning TV show, the Know Zone.

Mentoring young artists in person is something Mukabi also does. He’s been doing it for years, first at The GoDown where he had his studio and now at the Railway Museum’s former art gallery which he’s named the Dust Depo.

Mr Murito feels mentoring is a small price for artists to pay, but he says it is important to ensure there will be many more generations of creative artists to ensure that in future, local artists won’t be known just as Kenyans.

“They’ll be recognised as outstanding artists, not specifically as Kenyan or African, but as creatives operating on an international stage,” said Mr Murito who’s convinced local artists need to think bigger and boldly about their capacity to make waves on a global platform.

“Given their talent and the technology that exists right now, we have the means of breaking down multiple barriers and operating on a level playing field with artists from all around the world,” he added.

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