Artists

Five artists, one studio.

These are the people the studio is built around. Their profiles are being written with them, so what is here now is deliberately short.

Finished stitched panels hung along the studio wall, the work of the five artists below

Rider on a red bike, painted on a Soko maize meal sack, one of the works signed Bull

Work, not a portrait

Dennis Bull Ndegwa

Acrylic on repurposed unga paper and canvas

Profile

Born in Nairobi in 1998, with more than five years in Kenya's art scene. In his words, his practice is rooted in capturing the rhythms, resilience and resourcefulness of everyday Kenyan life, and his art echoes both the vibrancy and the grit of his surroundings.

His recent work combines acrylics with recycled unga paper, drawing on bodabodas as symbolic vessels for Kenya's economic shifts, urban motion and the grit of people hustling for their daily bread, or kutafuta unga as he puts it. Through those layered surfaces he explores survival, innovation and the hustle that defines Kenya's social and cultural fabric. He signs his work Bull.

Tumetoka shopping, two riders carrying a sack between them, by Dennis Bull Ndegwa

Baba yao, a rider with children, painted on wheat flour packaging, by Dennis Bull Ndegwa

Selected exhibitions

KUJITUMA, solo exhibition, Annex Gallery, Kibera, February to March 2026
Art Auction, International Leadership University Kenya, November 2025
Kibera Art District art biennale (S.O.S), House of Friends Gallery, 2025
Canadian High Commission, Nairobi, private exhibition, May 2025
Affordable Art Show, Kenya National Museum, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025
Art in the Open, Village Market Mall, group show, 2023, 2024 and 2025
Friends of The Arts, International School of Kenya annual exhibition, 2024 and 2025
Red Bull Doodle Art, top 30 finalist, Kioko Mwitiki Art Gallery, March 2023

Press

KAD Kibera Arts District, TRIO exhibition catalogue volume 1, 2026
Red Bull Doodle Art top 30 finalist Kenya, NFT collection
The Nairobian, Standard Media Group, Arts Lounge interview by Esther Diana, 21 to 27 August 2020

See the work

George Kamiti

Stitched metal, salvaged packaging and leather

Profile

He cuts sheet metal, flattened tin labels, packaging and leather to shape, scorches them, and joins them on a sewing machine. The stitch line is left visible, so every piece is drawn twice: once by the cut edge and once by the thread that holds it down. Faces come out of scorched panels, and hair out of whatever grid the packaging offers, seed packets, tomato paste labels, netting, dotted paper.

Twenty eight of his pieces are in the gallery. Most are wall work, but the G-avants series is not: those are wearable, leather bodices built up with brass rosettes, shell, beadwork and salvaged fittings. Titles are his own, from the folder he supplied. No medium, size or year came with them.

Unfiltered radiance, a smiling portrait in scorched stitched panels, by George Kamiti

G-avants 4, a leather bodice with blue discs and beaded spikes at the shoulders, by George Kamiti

See the work

John Ruitha Maina

Acrylic on salvaged cardboard and packaging

Profile

He is 27 and works from his home studio in Thika Town. He began with oil paints and moved to acrylics, which he says he finds more enjoyable to work with, and describes his style as a modern one built on urban narratives, human figures, emotions and contemporary fashion. He is self taught, and says he keeps learning from artists at home and abroad.

Since early 2023 he has been painting on cardboard. In his words the approach seeks to raise awareness about recycling, since a great deal of cardboard is thrown away and only a small fraction of it is recycled or upcycled. He collects it from bins, from shops and from friends' homes, so the surface of a painting is made of the things people around him have already bought and finished with, which is the point he is making about consumerism. He signs his work Ruitha.

A rider stretched out along his motorcycle against a wall of pasted cuttings, by John Ruitha Maina

A matatu at a stage painted on a vegetable exporter's carton, by John Ruitha Maina

Photographs from the same handover

A black and white photograph of someone in a bandana and bomber jacket painting, beside a colour detail of the motorcycle taking shape under their hand

Visitors at an art fair looking at framed matatu paintings hung on a teal wall

Not paintings: someone at work on one of the motorcycle pieces, and his stand at a fair.

See the work

Daniel Kabiaru

Acrylic on cardboard and canvas, and cardboard sculpture

Profile

He works in two directions at once. One is paint on torn corrugated cardboard, a single figure from the street set against poured black and white paint and a hard band of colour. The other is canvas, where the same figures dissolve into curling ribbons of colour. He signs his work Dan Kabiaru.

Thirty three of his pieces are in the gallery, dated 2024 to 2026, with the titles, mediums and sizes he records for each one. They include one sculpture, a seated figure built entirely from rolled cardboard.

Mama chai, a tea picker painted on torn cardboard with a red band, by Daniel Kabiaru

Untitled 13, bands of blue, red and gold curling around a bright core, by Daniel Kabiaru

Selected exhibitions

Raw Roots Rare, Cincinnati, Ohio, curated by H'O'F art gallery, 2026
Affordable Art Show 20, Kenya National Museum, Nairobi, 2026
Art Mtaani, group exhibition, Nairobi, 2026
Canadian High Commission private showcase, Nairobi, 2024, 2025 and 2026
S'O'S art exhibition, House of Friends, Kibera, 2025
Echoes Of The Year, Nonis Art Gallery, group show, 2025
UN SDG 'Hope in Action' exhibition, Rome, 2024
Shifting Tides 2, Kobo Trust Foundation, 2024
Art in the Open 16 to 19, Village Market, 2024 and 2025
Share a Meal art gala, World Food Programme, curated by Kamene Art Gallery, 2023
Esho funi, oneness of life and its environment, Ardhi Art Gallery, 2023
Weaver Bird Company, solo private show, 2022

Press and recognition

Kenya Art Diary, 2025
UN SDG Hope in Action, top artists of the year, 2025
MASK Awards, 2024
ArtMedia Africa, Artists You Should Know, 2023

See the work

Portrait pending

Peter Ndirangu

Medium to be confirmed

Profile

The studio is still collecting this profile: the material worked with, a portrait, and the artist's own account of the practice.

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