Soaring art market attracts more galleries investors

Buyers keen to acquire contemporary Kenyan and East African art have a rare opportunity to see some of the most unique and fascinating works of art by both local and regional artists, whose works are on display around town.

The newest space is William Ndwiga’s Little Gallery that opened last weekend in Karen. It features an exceptional show of sculpture by Maggie Otieno.

Silent Conversations is Maggie’s first solo show in quite some time since she’s been doing lots of commissioned work that one can go see at the Garden City Mall, Makadara Railway Station and even at the new terminal at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.

What makes this show so special is not just her semi-abstract faces shaped and soldered out of mild steel, but also the more than 100 years old Burma teak wood Uganda Railway ‘sleepers’ on which her steel faces rest. The teak has its own warm grainy texture, rich brown hue and aged effect that contrasts well with Maggie’s variegated silvereye sculptures.

The next “newest” art gallery is what was previously known as the Circle Art Agency. With its focus on blending both quality contemporary art and indigenous talents many of whose works have rarely if ever been seen in Nairobi before, Circle has catered specifically for prospective investors keen on seeing exceptional art by both Kenyans and East Africans.

The current exhibition at Circle is Gor Soudan’s Join the Dots, a conceptual set of mixed media paintings and an installation that spans time and space with abstract shapes, dots and designs. 

Gor created his show by working with everything from rice paper and mild steel to coloured ink and fine point pens, a branch of burnt Jacaranda wood, a hammer and a limitless supply of nails.

Starting with the wood (which used to stand outside his mother’s house in Kisumu), the bark contained design elements that inspired him to trace the ‘veins’ all around the branch using a hammer and nails. Underlying the apparent randomness of his designs are patterns produced by his “joining the dots” and seeing whole concepts that others might not see at all.

Gor admits that his show might be described as metaphysical, but his conceptual art has already attracted investors and collectors who like his visionary approach.

Red Hill Gallery is also relatively new, but the Rossler-Muschs have spent years travelling and working around the region so they know what they like in contemporary East African art. That’s one reason why they are pleased to show the abstract paintings by Ethiopian artist Meri.

The exhibition is a collaboration between Red Hill and Art Lab Africa, an online platform started two years ago by Lavinia Calza to promote East African art outside Kenya, mainly in Europe and the United States.

Describing herself as an art dealer whose business is specifically marketing and selling East African abroad, Lavinia brought Merikokeb Behranu’s work to Hellmuth Rossler’s attention, after which he chose to showcase her paintings for the next month or so.

Merikokeb is one of several artists whose works Lavinia plans to exhibit at the London Art Fair, 1:54. The others include Peterson Kamwathi, Beatrice Wanjiku, Miriam Syowia Kyambi , James Muriuki, Paul Onditi, Gor Soudan and Arlene Wandera.

Having worked for a while in London and New York for Sotheby's, Lavinia says she was awed by several local artists’ works when she came to Kenya. She was inspired to begin the business of selling their art on global platforms, like the recent Cape Town Art Fair.

At One Off Gallery, Mukuru-based artist Shabu Mwangi’s set of semi-abstract paintings Hope at the Tarmac opened last weekend.

Shabu’s remarkable story of how he came out of a life of crime into discovering the joys of creative expression is on YouTube. But one need not see the video to appreciate the artist more since his artwork speaks for itself.

In Hope at the Tarmac, he effectively joins the dots between all the communities he sees moving around the planet. Some are refugees, others  nomads and homeless locals; but all are treading the tarmac in hopes of finding a better future.

All of these artists prefer not to talk about prices; nonetheless, price tags suggest most investors are prepared to buy Kenyan art for thousands of shillings or more.

The article has been edited to refer to the exhibition as a platform and not a gallery.