Contemporary art in modern Africa | The Times | Tristan McConnell
Michael Soi is flecked with paint when I meet him at his studio, a high, rough-walled room in a converted warehouse in Nairobi’s industrial area. Stacked against walls and tables are his large acrylic on canvas paintings in flat, bright colours: buxom women with towering Afros, leering men in uniforms and suits, corrupt coppers, fat-cat politicians, pickpockets preying on bus queues … “The contemporary art scene in Kenya is inconceivable without Soi,” says Danda Jaroljmek, a director at Nairobi’s Circle Art Agency, which markets Kenyan art.