Find all the art iN Nairobi this month….Events, openings and ongoing exhibitions, it’s all here in your monthly art guide.
EVENTS & OPENINGS
routing routine rooting | Munyu Space | 21, 22, 23 April |12-5pm
routing routine rooting is a 3 part on-going exploration that involves referencing & documenting memories attached to movement, repetition and nature and how they influence our culture. The work is both ethnographic and expressive in its intention. Timings are 12pm – 5pm daily with a scheduled walk through from 4 – 5pm and a closing/ opening night on Thursday 23rd from 6 – 10pm.
Handle with Care | Boniface Maina, Michael Musyoka, David Thuku | Circle Art Gallery | Opening 22 April, 6-8pm | Until 29 May 2026
Survival is not a passive state, but an active, exhausting performance. Whether navigating a landscape of vice, stretching our physical limits, or painting our faces to hide our exhaustion, we must perform to stay afloat.
In this exhibition, Boniface Maina, David Thuku, and Michael Musyoka each examine the fragile systems we abide by to exist within the world, reflecting on the contradictions between what is felt internally and what is presented outwardly. Across their practices, a shared thread emerges: the constant oscillation between vulnerability and control, self and environment, authenticity and performance.
Gallery 2 will exhibit the second generation Brush Tu artists: S W Gatugi, Munene Kariithi, Elias Mung’ora, Joseph Muturi, Lincoln Mwangi, Husna Nyathira, Peteros Ndunde, Husna Nyathira, Antony Mega Ng’ang’a, Joseph Mbiyu Ng’ang’a, Kimani Ngaru, Margaret Ngigi, Alfred Sila, Sebawali Sio, Rachel Tamara and Victor Wathithi
Film: Finding Vivian Maier | Contemporary Image Centre | Friday 24 April | 7pm
Finding Vivian Maier (2013), the remarkable story of a nanny who took over 150,000 photographs that no one saw until after her death. Discovered by chance at a Chicago auction house, her work is now recognised as some of the most compelling street photography of the twentieth century.
Limited Seats RSVP via link in bio @cic.africa
Building a Pan-African Library in Goma | Exhibition, Music & Film Screening + Panel Discussion | Cheche Books | Friday 24 & Saturday 25 April
Friday: an evening of Congolese art, live music and food in benefit of the collaborative project Building a Pan-African Library @_ingoma_afrika___
On Saturday evening, Cheche will be screening the short MWAN’ENGO and the documentary film From Patrice to Lumumba followed by a panel discussion.
And of course book donations are still being accepted til the end of April. Let’s build this library together.
Vibes & Inshallah | Naso At Home Studios | Saturday 25 April | 1 – 5pm
An interactive group session where we get to build cities in boxes. We’ll explore the narrative of how places come to be and how they shape us. Not the history books. Not the External Voices, Not the politicians. Us.
Fee: Ksh 1,111 | Slots: Only 10 available | Supplies: All art materials provided
Tabula Rasa | Peterson Kamwathi | NCAI | Opening Saturday 25 April | Until 23 August
Peterson Kamwathi’s first major institutional solo exhibition and his first such exhibition in Nairobi. Spanning drawing, printmaking, sculpture, video, and a site-specific wall drawing, the exhibition centres drawing as a way of thinking, a way of looking that is never passive. Through layered images, shifting between clarity and obscurity, Kamwathi questions what is remembered, what is erased, and who decides. The everyday becomes monumental; the overlooked, charged with history. In this exhibition, Kamwathi offers something more valuable than resolution: a set of images precise enough to slow us down, and open enough to let us look again.
Entry is FREE.
RSVP via the link in bio @ncai254.
Chorus of Beings | Newton Eshivachi & Paul Njihia | One Off Gallery | Opening Saturday 25 April | 2 – 5pm | Until 24 May
Paul Njihia: This body of work examines the shifting power dynamics embedded in everyday life. In recent years, CCTV cameras have become an ordinary presence in our daily lives; on streets, workplaces and public spaces. While they are presented as instruments of security, their deeper function lies in surveillance. Surveillance is not neutral; it is an act performed by those in positions of power upon those below them. The aerial camera view becomes a symbol of this imbalance: visible to all, yet operated by unseen watchers. This in turn creates a constant awareness of being observed, shaping behavior and reinforcing hierarchies. Through this work, I interrogate the tension between protection and policing, visibility and invisibility, freedom and control.
Newton Eshivachi: Eshivachi began his artistic practice working with pen and pencil before transitioning to acrylic painting. Positioning art as both social critique and reflective practice, Eshivachi’s work describes the often-overlooked forces shaping lived realities in Metamodern African societies; where idealism and disillusionment, hope and constraint, coexist in tension.
Fragments | Thom Ogonga | One Off Gallery | Opening Saturday 25 April | 2 – 5pm | Until 24 May
Ogonga explores the expressive and temporal possibilities of material. His process is characterized by layering, revision, and the interplay between control and spontaneity, resulting in surfaces that register both immediacy and duration. Through fragmented compositions and partially resolved forms, his work resists fixed narratives, instead foregrounding ambiguity and emotional complexity.
His recent body of work investigates rupture – particularly the psychological and affective dimensions of separation, grief, and the ongoing process of self-redefinition. His paintings situate the personal within a broader visual language, inviting viewers to engage with states of vulnerability, absence, and transformation.
Nairobi Photo Walk with Jorge Dachala | 26 April 2026 | 11:00 AM
In Nairobi and looking for a photography community? Join the Nairobi Photo Walk. It is an open space to meet other photographers, explore the city, and build your practice through doing.
Register here: https://airtable.com/appoOCu5Be7LsDtNg/shrOaYg5PUawyGUch
Sanaa Universe Art Show | Sarit Centre | Thursday 23 – Sunday 26 April
ONGOING EXHIBITIONS
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
Permission to Wander | Patricia Otieno | Provisions Kenya | Throughout April
“Permission to Wander” is a return to innocence without ignoring the ground of the artist’s foundation. Oil pastels, oil paints and paint powder are all mediums i first encountered on her journey as an artist. The symbolism that flows through Otieno’s work is inspired by bead work in “kom nyaluo”, a traditional luo stool. Traditionally it represented beginnings, translating to “place of birth” but also home and the ecosystem that surrounds us as individuals and in community. Otieno primarily uses the imagery to encapsulates intimate moments of joy, fear, happiness, depression and hope felt within urban and political spaces during her youth in and outside of Kenya.
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.
Ancestral Grain | Gakunju Kaigwa | Rooftop Gallery, Village Market | Until 6 May | 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM daily
The tree never truly dies—it simply transforms, carrying the breath of our ancestors into the spaces where we live, sit, and dream. @tewasartgallery invites you into a quiet, powerful conversation between nature, memory, and time. Each sculpture becomes a vessel of continuity—where nature, ancestry, and artistry gently intertwine.
Second Lives | Wilson Ngugi | Nairobi National Museum, Creativity Gallery | Until 14 May
An exhibition of cardboard sculptures—where discarded material is transformed into form, structure, and meaning.
8:30am – 5:00pm daily | Normal museum rates apply.
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]
The 51 Years Of My Art Love | Photizo, Muthangari Garden Rd, Lavinghton | Until 16 May
A special art exhibition in honor of a Maestro of Congolese Popular Art, Chéri Chérin, accompanied by amazing artists ; Grady Kinkonda, Edith Congane, Strong Kinumbi, Winnar Nsangu and Benjamin Mbenga.
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.