James Kamande.

Portfolio.

Artist Biography.

James Kamande is a self-taught visual artist based in Nairobi, Kenya. He was born and raised in Kangemi and schooled at the St. Martins center in the Kibagare suburb slum. It was while at the center that he realized his artistic enthusiasm which was shaped by the daily experiences, recollections, and remembrance of his childhood life. James received his Diploma in Tourism Management in June 2013 from Zetech college. After this, he moved to Kasarani where he continued his passionate creative career as a full-time visual artist. He has exhibited his works in the Affordable Art Shows at the National Museum, Manjano exhibitions, and at OneOff gallery group shows.

Artist Statement.

James began to create art full-time in 2014. Working on canvas and boards with acrylics, and charcoals and found objects to execute and realize his ideas. The formative years he spent in the center deeply inspired the distressed and rugged wall backgrounds. With markings, scribbles, and pictographs in the paintings he creates today, on them, he lays his subjects and themes. He explores the lasting desire of people to realize, transition, and develop themselves. From dependence to independence and through experience, to dexterity. He finds his inspiration for his creative process from the fading and peeling layers of paints of the rugged walls, doors, windows, and the hopeful portraits of people in the slum suburbs.

This process also enables him to tell the stories of life as it is today. How he finds wholeness and carefree joy in his basic life circumstances. He hopes to enter more art fairs and galleries, to keep on telling the stories of suburb slum life in Kenya and Africa. And to develop and broaden artistic processes for the young creative generation.

Social Page: Instagram.