Find all the art iN Nairobi this week. From powerful reflections on memory and resistance to cross-continental conversations and newly opened shows, Nairobi’s art scene continues to unfold in layered, thoughtful ways this week. Across the city, galleries and collectives are hosting exhibitions that interrogate history, identity, and displacement—offering everything from large-scale printmaking to intimate retrospectives and group showcases. Whether you’re stepping into a quiet gallery space or tuning into a wider dialogue, there’s plenty to see, feel, and think about.
EVENTS & OPENINGS
Watchdog of the Night Artist Talk | Munyu Space | Thursday 26 March | 6 – 10pm
An artist talk with the very talented @njogu.kuria in collaboration with @munyu_space at the mall basement. In true KK fashion, there will be a screening and hangout after. Munyu Space open daily Tue -Sat 10am to 6pm.
Art in the Open | Village Market | Thursday 26 – Sunday 29 March | 10am – 6pm
Come spend the day exploring vibrant works by talented artists, discovering pieces you may love, and connecting with the people behind the art. Whether you’re an avid collector or simply love experiencing creativity up close, you’re welcome here. Free entry.
Echoes of Memory Guided Art Tour | Kofisi Kaskazi | Friday 27 March Friday |10am – 12pm
Guided art tour to Echoes of Memory by Kenyan artist @ckabiru at KOFISI Kaskazi @kofisicentres. Rsvp: +254 710 282 902 (Whatsapp)
Rudi Nyumbani: Writing Our Way Back to Ourselves | Contemporary Image Centre | Friday 27 March | 6pm
Presented by Black Spirit Artists’ Way, Rudi Nyumbani is an invitation to return home through writing: to the self that knows itself beyond biography, to the spirit that remembers what the heart has seen, and to the community that witnesses and holds us in our becoming. In this artist circle + mini-workshop, we’ll explore writing as a way of returning to and centering our voice. Whether you’ve felt stuck, unsure where to begin, or are simply curious about writing in a deeper way, this gathering is for you! Tickets: Ksh. 500 (RSVP via link in bio @cic.africa)
Closing Party for the Watchdogs of the Night Art show by Njogu Kuria | Munyu Space | Friday 27 March | From 6pm
Show officially closes Saturday end of day 28th March. One card. One mic. Infinite MADness. For this edition, Njogu Kuria’s Watchdogs of the Night is turned into a live performance playground. Each card you draw is inspired by a piece from the exhibition. You read it. You feel it. You step to the mic. The DJ builds the sound. You respond …. however you want. Music. Poetry. Dance. Comedy. No script. No rehearsal. Just instinct. All performing artists welcome. Come experience a night where art speaks … and you answer.
🎟️ RSVP now → Link in Bio @themadroyals
Exhibition Walkabout and Sketch Workshop | NCAI | Saturday 28 March | 2pm & 3pm
The afternoon begins with an Exhibition Walkabout of ‘Michael Armitage, Maria Lassnig & Chelenge Van Ramperlberg’, led by Nairobi-based artist Sujay Shah, starting exactly at 2 PM. The Walkabout is open to all, offering deeper insight into the exhibition and the artists’ work.
From 3 PM, the experience continues with a hands-on Sketch Workshop, where participants will explore drawing through experimental techniques, creating inks and watercolours from locally sourced clay and soil, and engaging in guided exercises inspired by the exhibition. No prior experience needed, just come curious.
Please note: The workshop spaces are limited. To participate in the workshop, you must attend the walkabout.
📍 Nairobi Contemporary Art Institute
🕑 2 PM – Walkabout (open to all)
🎟️ 3 PM – Sketch Workshop (sign-up required)
Kindly sign up for either of the events via the respective links in bio.
Olfaction Arts | Perfume Making & the Architecture of Scent (Workshop) | CIC | Saturday 28 March | 12pm
The CIC invites you to a workshop on perfume making and the art of scent. What does a scent remember? How does fragrance become a map of emotion, identity, and lived experience? This workshop explores smell as both a creative and artistic medium; where science meets poetry, and fragrance becomes a tool for memory, calm, and presence. Discover how scent bypasses logic and travels directly to the limbic system — the part of the brain where memory and emotion live. Through guided breathwork, sensory exploration, and hands-on blending, you’ll craft your own personal, ester-based perfume: a scent memory and ritual object that is uniquely yours.
Led by curator, art writer, and analytical chemist Joy Mala.
Workshop Fee: 1,500 KSh | Limited Seats
Open to all. No prior experience needed. Link in bio @cic.africa.
You Will Not Certainly Die | Baraka Shamia | One Off Gallery | Opening Saturday 28 March | 2-5pm | Until 19 April
Baraka Shamia continues his exploration of life’s precarious balance, where endings are neither fixed nor absolute. This body of work reflects a shift from inevitability toward uncertainty – opening space for doubt, resilience, and the possibility of continuation. Through layered, figurative compositions, Shamia presents forms in transition, entwined with organic elements that suggest both fragility and renewal. His paintings draw from lived experience, where the boundaries between human, environment, and memory remain fluid and unresolved.
You May Not Certainly Die invites reflection on persistence in the face of instability; on what it means to exist within cycles that resist clear conclusions, where even in decline, the potential for transformation endures.
Deprivation | Adlan Yousif | One Off Gallery | Opening Saturday 28 March | 2-5pm | Until 19 April
n Deprivation, Adlan Yousif presents a stark and introspective body of work that examines absence—of resources, of stability, and of certainty in the presence of war. This second exhibition marks a deepening of his practice, turning inward to confront the emotional and psychological weight of scarcity and the most profound loss.
Through restrained line and carefully constructed compositions, Yousif evokes spaces that feel both intimate and unsettled. His figures and forms appear suspended, caught between endurance and vulnerability, reflecting the quiet realities of living with limitation.
Deprivation is not only about material lack, but about what is withheld, unseen, and unspoken. In these works, grief becomes a presence—one that shapes identity, memory, and the human condition.
Sudan Art Talk | Circle Art Gallery | Sunday 29 March | 2-4pm
This discussion will also open onto a broader and timely dialogue on the role art plays in engaging with and responding to what is happening in Sudan today.
Patrick Mukabi Medical Fund Benefit Auction | Trademark Hotel | Saturday 4 April
📱 WhatsApp: +254 710 282 902
Tabula Rasa | Peterson Kamwathi | NCAI | Opening 25 April | Until 23 August
In the works presented here, Kamwathi assembles figures, monuments, maps, and everyday objects into composite pictorial spaces that collapse multiple locations and histories into a single frame. The exhibition takes its premise from the philosophical notion of the blank slate — and from the question of who benefits from declaring something empty.
Unseen Frontliners: The Invincibles in Plastic Recycling | Edwin Ndeke | Opening Monday 30 April, 6pm with screening & panel discussion | Exhibition contiunes until 26 April
As the“Desirable Futures” programme continues, you are invited to discover a powerful visual journey highlighting the essential, yet often unseen, workers at the heart of Nairobi’s recycling ecosystem. Every day, thousands of informal workers reclaim Nairobi’s waste — protecting the environment while remaining invisible. Photographer Edwin Ndeke brings their labour to light through striking documentary images.
The opening evening will feature:
🎬 A short film presented by @GreenpeaceAfrica
🎤 A panel discussion with Edwin Ndeke, the Kenya Waste Pickers Association and Greenpeace Africa, moderated by the @IPAEastAfrica
📸 An in‑depth look at community‑driven storytelling and environmental justice
Charcoal Portraiture Class | One Off Contemporary Art | Saturdays 11 April – 16 May
ONGOING EXHIBITIONS
Watchdogs of the Night | Njogu Kuria | Munyu Space | Until 28 March
Title inspired by UB40’s song Watchdogs.. where they sing about seeking safety from “hungry wolves”…Showcasing at @munyu_space Those wolves can be anything… fear, corruption, pressure, systems, people, even our own doubts. For the artist, the watchdogs are the spiritual guides, the elders, the ones we pray to, the ones we call when things fall apart. They are family, friends, ancestors, God, gods,, the forces that help keep us steady when life feels unstable. These guardians are built from discarded rubber, metal, vinyl, light and shadow. What was thrown away now stands watch.Because we all need something, or someone … guarding us through the night.
The Transition | Moses Muigai | Nairobi National Museum, Creativity Gallery | Until 31 March
An exploration of men and women, their shared place in the universe, and the ways nature responds to their actions, for better or for worse. Inspired by the dynamic ways adults navigate influence, responsibility, and consequence, Muigai’s paintings burst with colour and captivating energy.
8:30am – 5:00pm daily | Normal museum rates apply.
Lawrence Mwachiro | Provisions Kenya | Until 4 April
Lawrence Mwachiro, from Kenya and graduate of Buru Buru Institute of Fine art (BFA), is currently working as a professional visual artist and
Illustrator. He is passionate about arts, and has been able to communicate about African culture, the heritage and the pride we hold as Africans. To bring real life experiences in a form we can all relate. Art is very vital to him, it unifies humankind of all races, raises awareness about social issues, breaks barriers across the continent and it really inspires him to learn new innovative ideas from his mentors.
Michael Armitage, Maria Lassnig, Chelenge Van Rampelberg | NCAI | Until 5 April
The Nairobi Contemporary Art Institute (NCAI) in collaboration with Kunsthaus Bregenz presents ‘Michael Armitage, Maria Lassnig, and Chelenge Van Rampelberg’ in an exhibition that brings together three distinct yet deeply connected artistic voices. Following its first presentation at Kunsthaus Bregenz (KUB) in 2025, this travelling exhibition arrives at NCAI for its second iteration, extending an intergenerational and transcontinental conversation shaped by shared inquiries into the human condition. Uniting drawings, lithographs, prints, and sculptures, the exhibition explores the body as a site of vulnerability, relationship, and belonging. Marking a significant moment for Nairobi, it features the first showing of works by both Michael Armitage and Maria Lassnig in East Africa. With the selection of works shaped by Armitage, the exhibition foregrounds influence, lineage, and artistic affinity, situating these converging perspectives within a renewed local and global context at NCAI. The exhibition is presented in partnership with the Maria Lassnig Foundation, the Federal Ministry of Austria, and the Austrian Embassy in Nairobi.
Who Am I? | Collective Art Community | Ace Gallery, Buru Buru | Until 15 April
Collective Art Community creates a space for reflection, for honesty, for questions we often carry in silence. Through each artwork, fragments of identity, memory, and becoming come into view, exploring identity, perception; discovering who we are and why.
Nubian Tar | Issam Hafiez | Circle Art Gallery | Until 17 April
Additionally, in Gallery 2 there will be a group exhibition bringing together Sudanese artists currently living in Nairobi because of the war in Khartoum; Amani Azari, Mohammed Morda, Adlan Yousif, Sanaad Shreef, Alsadig Mahmoud, Mahmoud Farah, Waleed Mohammed and Batty.
Layered Lives Malcom Muysyoki, Mitchelle Nyambura, Eugene Miera, Rosebell Njuki, Khayesi Lilian | Nobody Owns Me, Kibera Arts District | Though 26 April
Like Water | Andrew Reuben Njoroge | Annex Gallery, Kibera Arts District | Though 26 April
Let There Be Light | Jimmy Kitheka & Edgar Kengara | HoF Gallery, Kibera Arts District | Though 26 April
Mali Safi | Patrick Mukabi | Banana Hill Gallery | Until 5 May
It’s the rhythm of the streets, the melodic call of the vendor, and the heartbeat of our markets. In this stunning new series, Patrick Mukabi captures the high-energy choreography of the Kenyan marketplace—the persuasive gestures, the colorful displays, and the relentless spirit of the hustle.
Curated by Njeri Njenga, this exhibition strips away the chaos to reveal the beauty in the transaction. It is a tribute to the people who turn the pavement into a stage and everyday trade into a symphony of human connection.
Echoes of Memory | Cyrus Kabiru | Kofisi Kaskazi | Until 15 May
‘Echoes of Memory’, the first major public exhibition in Nairobi by internationally acclaimed Kenyan artist Cyrus Kabiru is hosted at KOFISI Kaskazi, marking a significant homecoming for the artist following a decade of celebrated exhibitions across Europe and the United States. Experience contemporary African art that explores memory, movement and innovation — including the iconic Black Mamba bicycles that are now striking sculptural reflections on endurance.
9am–5pm weekdays | 9am–1pm Saturdays | Closed Sundays
DM, drop in, email or call: +254 (0)703041000 | [email protected]
Still in Transit | Sarah Waiswa and Joel Lukhovi | Paper Cafe X The Good Grain | Until 16 May
A collaborative trans-African photography project by @lafrohemien & @lukhovi explores movement as both method and subject. Developed over a decade of travel across the continent using local transport networks, the images trace how cities take shape through circulation, exchange and continual transformation. In this body of work, Waiswa and Lukhovi invite viewers to consider the visible and invisible forces that enable, restrict or redirect mobility, and the quiet negotiations through which people inhabit and move across space. Free and open to all
Viewing Hours; Tuesday to Saturday, 8 am to 4 pm.
The Skin of Memory | Abdul Rop| The African Arts Trust | Until 22 May
The African Art Trust and Kairos Futura announce The Skin of Memory, an exhibition of large-scale woodcut prints by Nairobi-based artist Abdul Rop. The exhibition presents a series of prints drawn from the history of the Nandi Resistance to British colonial rule (1890–1906). As a descendant of the Nandi people of Western Kenya, Rop turns to this history both as a personal inheritance and as a lens through which to examine colonialism’s lasting mark on communities, land, and identity.
At the centre of the series is the story of Orkoiyot Koitalel Arap Samoei, the spiritual and military leader of the Nandi people, who led more than a decade of resistance against British expansion and the construction of the Uganda Railway through Nandi territory. The railway, which the Nandi called the “Iron Snake”, fulfilled an earlier prophecy attributed to Samoei’s father, Kimnyole arap Turukat, who had foretold a great black serpent crossing the land. In October 1905, Samoei was killed by British Colonel Richard Meinertzhagen during a peace meeting. His skull was taken to London, where it remains. The resistance ended shortly after.
Rop’s intricate prints serve as a form of archaeology. By excavating these histories, he reveals the imprint left on the “skin” of the nation and its people. The scale of the prints asks viewers to reckon with these events at close range, tracing the connections between colonial administration, dispossession, and the communities that endured both.
Abdul Rop (b. 1993) is an artist and sociologist whose work addresses questions of social justice, land, and collective memory. He studied sociology and religion at Egerton University and developed his printmaking practice through the Brush Tu Artist Collective in Nairobi. He is a founding member of Kairos Futura.
Art of Connection | Sena Art X Art Direction @ Hyatt Regency | Ongoing through May 2026
In collaboration with Hyatt Hotels Westlands Nairobi, the exhibition ‘The Art of Connection’ unfolds across five floors as a living exhibition curated by Myrna (Art Direction) and Linda (Sena Art Gallery). Bringing together contemporary artists and designers from Kenya, Uganda, Sudan, Rwanda, Nigeria, and Tanzania, the exhibition explores art as a space of encounter, movement, and exchange.
Set within a hotel—a place of passage and pause—the exhibition remains fluid, continuously evolving as new works are introduced weekly. Through this platform, Myrna Art Direction and Sena Art Gallery connect artists with exclusive audiences, fostering dialogue, visibility, mentorship and sustainable creative practices across art, travel, and business.
Keep an eye on @senaartgallery on Instagram for announcements of their Taste of Art tours, encompassing a tour of some of the artworks in the collection acoompanied by themed bitings.
Artists and designers are invited to submit their work and join the exhibition. Portfolios (PDF) can be submitted via WhatsApp to +254 115 784 649.
A featured work By @altayeb_morhal, from the opening collection at Nubian Art Gallery
Opening Collection | Nubian Art Gallery (Stellato Mall) | Ongoing
The newest gallery in town, championing Sudanese art/artists and raising funds to support communities in Sudan affected by crisis, uplift children, and empower artists back home. Walk-ins are welcome, and private viewings can be arranged by appointment.
Hours: Mon – Thurs & Saturday 12-8pm | Friday & Sunday 2 – 9pm
I.N.N.A.T.E.L.Y N.A.T.U.R.E | She’Rustica | Two Grapes | End date TBD
She’Rustica By Design creates functional artistry and spatial design. I create bespoke, functional art and installation art
from discarded material, that embodies a blended rustic aesthetic. She’Rustica’s art is the result of a process of imagining and creating a delicate soft beauty from a rough and rigid world. Intentionally crossing the realm of physicality to invoke a state of introspection; to ask yourself, “What is my little thing?”. During the duration of the showcase there will be live interactions with the artist – keep an eye on socials @twograpes & @she’rustica plus @in.nairobi for details.
Wahenga Wa Sanaa | Nairobi National Museum | Until 2027
Wahenga wa Sanaa: Tracing two centuries of artistic legacy 1800 – 1980
Wahenga wa Sanaa brings the NMK collection into public view, tracing powerful themes of cultural identity, spirituality, history and politics, nature and environment, and the growth of formal art training and supporting institutions. The exhibition honours the Wahenga—the wise ancestors and cultural forebearers whose creativity laid the foundation for generations of artists. As we create art today, we walk in their footsteps and continue to build on their enduring legacy. The exhibition is funded by the Kenya Museum Society. Read more about the exhibition in our article.