Investment banker makes debut in art

Sebawale Sio had been quietly keeping a secret light deep inside her heart ever since she joined Loreto Convent Valley Road and saw her first painting by the acclaimed Kenyan artist, Peter Elungat.

“I thought I wanted to do something similar to what he does,” says the painter who is currently holding her first solo exhibition at the new arts venue, LifeStyle.

But for years, Seba was not prepared to pursue a career in the arts.

“I did go to the State University of New York as a fine arts major,” she says, “but I only stuck with it for a year and a half. What happened? I guess I got scared,” she says.

Someone might have advised her to ‘be more practical’. But in any case, she cancelled that course and shifted over to the Sorbonne where she studied Art History and French civilisation for a diploma.

Her next step was to pick up a scholarship and go study International Relations in Spain. It was another leap of faith to attend Schiller International University for two years where she got a Bachelor’s degree.

“All that time I was sketching on the side, but never taking my art seriously,” says Seba.

Her good grades and another scholarship got her into the London School of Economics where she got a Master’s degree in law and accounting.

“I joined a law firm for a time, but then shifted over to investment banking which is what I initially did when I finally came back to Kenya.”

Working in private equity for a time, Seba finally realised she could not keep her heart’s desire a secret any longer. She had always wanted to be an artist, and at last, she decided to do what had been in her heart all this time.

On the day BDLife went to see Sebawali’s first solo show at Lisa Christoffersen’s new art and culture space, Lifestyle, Seba was almost reverential when she told us that Elungat had just come to see her show.

Hers is not the first art exhibition Lisa has had since this stylish, eclectic gallery opened up just a year ago. “We had a group show featuring Agnew Waruinge, Onyis Martin, Mary Collis, Coster Ogwang, and Anthony Russell,” Lisa says.

But Seba’s is Lifestyle’s first solo exhibition, an event where more than 50 mixed media paintings are hanging not just on the first and second-floor walls of this former domestic abode. Seba’s art is also hanging gracefully from several trees around Lifestyle’s acre compound.

“I painted these [outdoor pieces] on watercolour paper and then encased them in two plates of transparent glass,” Seba says, noting they are essentially waterproof since the frames and the glass are sealed tight.

Entitled ‘Dedication: The Freedom Series’, Seba says she has been working on this series since early 2020. “But it wasn’t until Lisa encouraged me to have an exhibition here that I started preparing for this show,” she says.

Focusing on the theme of women, as were her previous exhibitions held with her fellow artists at Brush tu Artists Collective, Seba’s art has undergone several subtle yet significant changes over the last two years.

She is still blending a rainbow array of colours as she works with mixed media, oils, acrylics, and ink. But what is strikingly different between then and now is that the women she previously painted (mostly from memory, then modified by imagination) were largely concealed behind a cloak of beautifully blended colours.

One could see an eye or a lip emerging through the whirlwind of colours, as if the artist herself wasn’t quite sure if the time was ripe to declare herself an artist.

But now, most of her portraits have come out from the rainbow array, and we can see their feminine features clearly defined.

“They are part of a new series I am currently working on,” says Seba who is not about to rest on her laurels. “It’s called ‘Your mind is like a prism,” she adds, noting that a prism separates white light into a wide spectrum of colours.

But the overall theme of this show is freedom, Seba explains as she stands beside her series of butterflies that have just emerged from their cocoons. They seem reflective of Seba’s own free spirit and emergence into the light.