Kivuthi Mbuno
Kenya
Kivuthi Mbuno was born in 1947 in Mwangini, Machakos District, Kenya.
After a professional intermezzo as a safari cook in most of Kenya's and Tanzania’s national parks, he started his painting career in 1976.
Kivuthi Mbuno belongs to the early pioneers of East African Modern Art, who were self-trained, promoted and marketed throughout 1980s and 1990s by
the late Ruth Schaffner - curator of the renowned Gallery Watatu in Nairobi.
Elements completely unique to his work include a precise drawing style in vivid colours; a bizarre, hauntingly grotesque and almost surrealistic interpretation of nature, man and animal; and a meticulous graphic style. His pencil and pastel drawings on paper boast a visual vocabulary that does not vary widely, with repetitions of similar subjects across his portfolio. Kivuthi Mbuno lives and works in his Akamba community in south-eastern Kenya.
Mbuno’s artwork has often been compared with Joel Oswaggo’s colour pencil drawings – both use the same medium, both are deeply rooted in the tradition of their peoples and both interpret the culture of their peoples through their art.
Considered in a different way, however, Oswaggo’s art is documentary; he seeks to preserve his traditional social environment through his artwork. Mbuno’s work, alternatively, is personal; inspired by his Kamba Tribe mythology he creates his own microcosms, a visual vocabulary that has stayed much the same between works and over the years.
His work is collected by major museums such as the Völkerkunde Museum in Frankfurt, Germany, the Museum of African Art in New York, the Dallas Museum of Art, the National Museum of Art in Washing DC, the Saatchi Gallery and the Tate Mordern in London.
Untitled | Coloured Pencil on Paper | 51cm x 38cm - ca. 1996
CODE: MBU 8
Untitled | Coloured Pencil on Paper | 51cm x 38cm - ca. 1996 -
CODE: MBU 9
Untitled | Coloured Pencil on Paper | 51cm x 38cm - 1996
CODE: MBU 17
Untitled | Coloured Pencil on Paper | 51cm x 38cm - 1996
CODE: MBU 19
Untitled | Coloured Pencil on Paper | 51cm x 38cm - 1996
CODE: MBU 18