A group exhibition of Sudanese artists: Circle Art Gallery Two

Tiemar Tegene (Ethiopian, b. 1994). Lives and works in Addis Ababa

Tiemar Tegene’s works are anchored in her training as a printmaker, expanding etching processes into monoprinting through spontaneous experiments, most often using household items and their textures. Rather than producing numbered editions struck from the same plate, each work falls outside of fixed description as Tegene finds new ways to press the texture of an image through the application of ink onto the page. Additions of coloured pencil forge repeating icons and patterns, becoming increasingly abstracted whilst adding layers of personal narratives.

Channelling an intimate and complex response to the world around her, Tegene’s compositions are transmutations of her emotional experiences and the nature of her relationships with others. Inside these images live the details and echoes of larger stories, whether relayed in confidence by a friend, overheard on the street, or drawn from song lyrics or film. Consolidating ‘real’ details with flourishes of reference and imagination, her portraiture reaches for specific and consuming emotional moments, that ripple through the body and space.

Tegene received a BFA in Printmaking from the Allé School of Fine Arts & Design in Addis Ababa.

Solo and dual exhibitions include We Belong to Time, Circle Art Gallery (2025), Mirror Mirror on the Wall, Whose the Darkest of them All? , AKINCI Gallery in Amsterdam (2025) , Questioned and Assured Existence, Modern Art Museum Gebre Kristos Desta Center in Addis Ababa (2025), Memories from that Night, Gallery Dotwalk in Delhi NCR, (2024), Shertan Weha, Circle Art Gallery in Nairobi (2023).

Group exhibitions include Lets Agree to Disagree Christine X Art Gallery, Malta (2023); Gathering at Dawn Mitochondria Gallery, Houston (2024); the Lithuanian National Museum of Art (2022); and James Fuentes Art Gallery, New York (2022). Tegene has exhibited in various international art fairs such as 1-54 Contemporary Art Fair London (2023 & 2025), Africa Basel (2025), Cape Town Art Fair (2024) and Art Rotterdam (2025). In 2026 she will be showing at Expo Chicago Art Fair with Circle Art Gallery.

Tegene’s work is in various collections, including the Foundation Gandur pour l’Art in Geneva, the IIZIKO National Gallery South Africa, Africa First Collection, Kamita Art Collection, Schwartzman and Associates Collection and The African Arts Trust Collection.

Agnes Waruguru (Kenyan, b. 1994). Lives and works in Nairobi

Agnes Waruguru is interested in everyday materials, especially those associated with the home and daily routines. Her practice is a weaving of slow meditative processes and quick reactive moments, at once formal and abstract, drawing together process and craft. Many of her works reference women’s practices, traditional cultural identifiers and personal identity politics as modes to engage with memory, place and expanding notions of home moving between Kenya the country of her birth and her adopted homes. She draws from personal experience to create new landscapes which can often be memory or emotionscapes that invite the viewer to look slowly, imagine and speculate.

Waruguru received a BFA from the Savannah College of Art and Design, USA. Her work has been exhibited in America, the Ivory Coast, France, the Netherlands, South Africa, Switzerland, Turkey and Kenya. She has participated in residencies in Kenya, at the Saba Artists Residency in Lamu and in Sydney, Australia. Waruguru participated in the inaugural edition of the Stellenbosch Triennale, South Africa in 2020 and had her first solo show Small Things to Consider at Circle Art Gallery later that same year. In 2022 she was nominated for the Volkskrant Beeldende Kunst Prize and showed at the 22nd Biennial Sesc–Videobrasil in Sao Paulo in 2023. She recently completed a residency at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam. She participated in the 69th Biennale di Venezia entitled 'Foreigners Everywhere' curated by Adriano Pedrosa.

Waruguru had her second solo exhibition at Circle, What the Water Left Behind, in December 2024 and was featured in The Artsy Vanguard: Young Artists to Watch, an annual feature highlighting the most promising artists working today. This year she is participating in The Roundness of Loss at the Stedelijk Museum Schiedam, Rememory at Garage Rotterdam, and the Past Is Just the Prologue exhibition at Lis10 Gallery in Hong Kong. Her work is included in the following collections: the Ford Foundation Collection, The African Arts Trust Collection, the Africa First Collection, the ARAK Collection, the Enasoit Collection, the Shulting Art Collection, and Collection INELCOM in Madrid.

In 2026, she will have solo exhibitions at Casa Masaccio in Italy and at Sanatorium Gallery in Istanbul.

Souad Abdelrassoul (Egyptian, b. 1974). Lives and works in Cairo

Souad Abdelrassoul’s practice spans various media, incorporating drawing, painting, sculpture and graphic design. Working between the abstract and figurative, she intertwines human, animal and vegetal forms, believing we are all intrinsically connected to the earth. Tree-like figures with branching veins and arteries, and giant insect-like creatures, merge on her canvases to remind the viewer of the vital bond between our internal lives and the exterior world we live in.

Abdelrassoul’s paintings exalt in the feminine and the emotional. They explore the idea of the modern woman, informed by her own experiences of living within a patriarchal society. Many of her motifs address these issues, whilst also making reference to artists and practices that she admires. Reflecting on her experiences as a mother, Abdelrassoul draws attention to the ways women evolve and adapt in oppressive environments. Often using familiar myths and legends, she paints stories through her figures that question the roles women hold in society and cultural history in disruptive and thought-provoking ways. By reconceptualizing perceptions of space, she repurposes notions of form, science and nature into strikingly personal configurations.

Souad Abdelrassoul received her BFA from El Minya University in 1998, a masters degree in Art History in 2005, and a PhD in Modern Art History in 2012. She has exhibited widely since the late 1990s, with solo shows in Cairo, Dakar, and Nairobi, including Behind the River (2021) and Unstable Worlds (2024), at Circle Art Gallery. Group exhibitions include East African Encounters, Cromwell Place, London (2021); A Never Ending Longing Cromwell Place, London (2022); Like a Single Pomegranate, Almas Foundation at the Fitzrovia Gallery, London (2023), accompanied by a monograph of the same name. Her work has been shown at art fairs in London, Dubai, Marrakech, as well as The Armory Show in New York in 2022. That same year, her work was commissioned for the facade of the Hayward Gallery in London and she was featured in Phaidon’s 300 Great Women Painters. In 2023, she was a finalist for the Norval Sovereign African Art Prize in Cape Town. In 2025 she took part in the group exhibition Finding my Blue Sky curated by Omar Kholeif at Lisson Gallery, London, and featured in the Abu Dhabi and 1-54 London Art Fairs with Gallery Misr. In February 2026 she will be taking part in Art Basel Qatar with Gallery Misr and the Cape Town Art Fair with Circle Art Gallery.

Abdelrassoul’s work is featured in the collections of the Worcester Art Museum, Chazen Museum, the Fortress House Museum, Barjeel and Dalloul Art Foundations.

Donald Wasswa (Ugandan b. 1984). Lives and works in Uganda

Donald Wasswa’s multidisciplinary practice explores processes of social and environmental transformation, influences of science and technology, and the changing nature of communication in contemporary societies. Spontaneous encounters with natural or found objects shape his research, with these objects, claimed as art materials, becoming carriers of memories and places. Wasswa’s objects suffer various forms of interference by carving, assembling and arranging, resulting in sculptural forms, three-dimensional paintings and installations. Through this process of material transformation, Wasswa imagines the secret lives of man-made objects and how they might in turn determine future humans.

Wasswa studied Sculpture at Kyambogo University. He has participated in solo and group exhibitions in Uganda and internationally, including East African Encounters at Cromwell Place, London (2021); Degenerative Evolution of the Living at Absa Art Gallery, Johannesburg (2018); To Live Is to Become at Afriart Gallery, Kampala (2017); and Zikunta, Kampala (2016).

In 2019, Wasswa was selected to participate in the Ouagadougou Sculpture Biennial and exhibited at the 1–54 Contemporary African Art Fair, London. He returned to 1–54 in 2022 and also exhibited at Untitled Miami Art Fair with Steve Turner Gallery. He was the recipient of the Merit Award in the Absa L’Atelier competition (2016). In 2025, he showed at the 1–54 Contemporary African Art Fair, London, with Circle Art Gallery.

His work is part of the ARAK Collection. Press coverage includes Donald Wasswa’s Delicate Wooden Creatures Emerge from a Speculative Future, Colossal (2025). Wasswa is currently based in Kampala, where he is the founder and proprietor of Artpunch Studio.

Engdaye Lemma (Ethiopian, b. 1980). Lives and works in Addis Ababa

Engdaye Lemma was born and raised in Desse City, Ethiopia. His interest in visual art was cultivated at the Alle School of Fine Arts and Design where he received his Bachelors of Fine Arts and was part of the school’s first print-making cohort. Lemma now teaches at the School of Fine Arts and collaborates with several of his former teachers.

Lemma’s experimental print-making practice synthesises screen-printing, painting and collage media. Exploring the multiple ways in which life and culture intertwine, his works are rigorous interrogations of the textures of society. He is inspired by ethnography whilst also taking seriously art’s power to bridge the gap between knowledge and lived experience.

Lemma, who lives and works in Addis Ababa, takes as his subject city life. He often reflects on the ways in which public space and private space overlap in urban environments. The visual density of his works speaks to the everyday chaos of life in the city: the rapid pace of change and movement, the blurred boundaries of individuality and collectivity, the clashing yet rhythmic sounds and the sudden leftover objects and marks. Ultimately, Lemma reflects on society and humanity, as he himself, always present in his work, navigates life, meaning and existence.

Select solo and dual exhibitions include; Floating Souls, Addis Fine Art, London, UK (2024); and LET’S AGREE TO DISAGREE, Christine X Art Gallery, Sliema, Malta (2023). Group exhibitions include Connected Threads, Addis Fine Art, NADA Space, New York, USA (2024); Eastern Voices: Contemporary Artists from East Africa, Addis Fine Art, London, UK (2023); and Expansive Corridor, Modern Art Museum Gebre Kristos Desta Centre, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (2022). He has also participated in major art fairs such as Liste Art Fair with Addis Fine Art, Basel, Switzerland (2025) and 1-54 Contemporary Art Fair London with Addis Fine Art (2024).

Nahom Teklehaimanot (Ethiopian, b. 1991) Lives and works in Nairobi

Nahom Teklehaimanot is an Eritrean visual artist whose work explores migration, memory, displacement, and the fragile architecture of belonging. Working primarily with airbrush and collage, Teklehaimanot creates layered, atmospheric compositions that navigate the emotional terrain between homeland and exile. Raised between Ethiopia and Eritrea, his practice is deeply informed by lived experiences of movement and rupture. His paintings often blur figures, landscapes, and fragments of archival imagery, evoking the way memory dissolves and reconstructs itself over time. Through softness, erasure, and subtle tonal shifts, he examines how identity is shaped by absence as much as presence. Self-taught, Teklehaimanot has developed a distinctive visual language that balances vulnerability with resilience. His work resists spectacle, instead offering quiet yet powerful reflections on survival, longing, and the invisible weight carried by displaced bodies.
Teklehaimanot holds a Diploma in Information Communication Technology from SMAP Institute of Training, Asmara, Eritrea (2013).

Solo and dual exhibitions include When Home Won’t Let You Stay (2024) at Addis Fine Art Gallery, Addis Ababa; Unspoken Wars (2024) at AKKA Project Gallery, Venice; and Connectivity of the Identity (2019) at The Gallery, Asmara. Group exhibitions include Addis Fine Art, London; Figure This (2023) and Figure This II (2023) at Sarah Kravitz Gallery, London; Fictions (2022) at Circle Art Gallery, Nairobi; and 4x4+1 (2022) at Chilly Art Project Gallery, London. Art fairs include 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair (2024). He is the recipient of the 1st Prize in the Professional Category at the European Union Art Competition (2013).

This year he is taking part in the 25th Biennale of Sydney.

Shabu Mwangi (Kenyan b. 1985). Lives and works in Nairobi

Mwangi is concerned with the effects of structural violence in historical and contemporary contexts particularly those brought about by the farce of democracy and globalization, the isolation of capitalism and the severed interdependence that human beings have with each other and the world we inhabit. He continues to survey emotional and psychological landscapes within himself and in society to create densely layered compositions.

Mwangi has lived and worked in Mukuru, an informal settlement in Nairobi where he co-founded the Wajukuu Art Project in 2004. In 2023, he was a finalist for the Access Art X Prize in the Africa/Diaspora category and participated in the GAS residency in Lagos set up by Yinke Shonibare. In 2022, Mwangi and fellow members of the Wajukuu Art Project participated in Documenta 15 in Kassel, where they went on to win the Arnold Bode prize. In the same year he participated in the 13th Bienal do Mercosul in Brazil.

Recent solo and group exhibitions include: (Un)Contained Turbulence, Circle Art Gallery (2024); Self Addressed, curated by Kehinde Wiley for Deitch Gallery, Los Angeles (2023); Systems to Emptiness, a prelude to Documenta 15 (2022); A Never Ending Longing, Circle Art Gallery, Cromwell Place, London (2022); The Sources of Our Seas, Circle Art Gallery (2021); East African Encounters, Cromwell Place, London (2021). Other shows include, The Man with Two Shadows, Circle Art Gallery online, (2020); Yawning for Power, Tilleard Projects (2019); The Stateless, Circle Art Gallery (2018); Freedom, Flight, Refuge, Circle Art Gallery (2017); Art Transposition Nairobi-Kampala-Hamburg, LKB Gallery, Hamburg; Pop-Up Africa, GAFRA, London (2017); Out of the Slum, Essen (2012). Art Fairs include the Cape Town Art Fair in 2022 and 2018, as well as 1-54 London in 2019 and 2018. Mwangi has participated in residency programs in Kenya, Germany and Italy. Mwangi’s work is in various collections including the ARAK Collection, Documenta and The African Arts Trust collection.

Birhane Worede, (Ethiopian, b. 1998). Lives and works in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Worede received a BFA from the Alle School of Fine Arts in 2021 where he graduated with honours and is currently pursuing a Masters of Fine Art at the same institution.

Worede’s intimate and affective portraits are rendered in a reductive stylistic approach, grounding colour, gesture and surface quality. He sees his process as one akin to abstraction, applying oil paint on canvas in loose washy strokes and using suggestive lines and tonal shifts to define the composition, often a solitary figure in a domestic interior setting. Worede’s works also play with mood, oscillating between cool and warm palettes

“Throughout my work, I expressed interest in self-discovery and the everyday occurrences of the surrounding world. Growing up, living and working as a studio artist in the biggest market place of Africa “Merkato” Addis Ababa influences my work. Human life and emotions are main inspirations… I want my work to create consciousness … self-awareness, curiosity for others’ self- examination.”

Worede has exhibited locally and internationally with group shows in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Memphis, USA, London, UK and Johannesburg, South Africa. He has a solo exhibition at Circle in 2026 following a successful group show in 2024.

Sandra Wauye (Kenyan, b. 1996). Lives and works in Mombasa

Sandra Wauye, a painter and ceramicist based in Mombasa, Kenya, attends to grief and trauma processing in her practice that unfolds at the intersection of community, cultural practices and healing rituals in contemporary society. Wauye’s expressive painting style in oil and oil pastel sticks features bold colours applied in thick loose strokes, and thinner controlled outlines, composing tableaus that fuse human and animal forms against vibrant, multi-coloured undefined environments.

In 2024, Wauye was one of three artists who participated in UJUZI, an artistic research and mentorship program with Nairobi Contemporary Art Institute and Untethered Magic which culminated in an exhibition at NCAI. She completed a residency at 32 Degrees East in Kampala in 2023, and in 2024 was a participating artist in the KLA ART Festival themed Care Instructions.

She featured in a group show, New Visions at Circle Art Gallery in 2024 and has her first solo exhibition at Circle in November 2026.

Michael Soi (Kenyan b. 1972). Lives and works in Nairobi

Soi’s practice functions as a visual diary of Nairobi, offering sharp satirical commentary on the city’s social, economic, and political realities. His work examines relationships - intergenerational, interracial, and transactional - what he describes as the economics of love. Themes of commercial sex work, popular culture, globalization, and consumerism recur as lenses through which he interrogates contemporary urban life.

Heaven Can Wait is a body of paintings that captures these dynamics while embracing the cultural diversity of Nairobi. As a distinctly multicultural city, Nairobi absorbs influences from across the world, shaping how its residents socialize, celebrate, seek pleasure, and mark small victories amid persistent economic hardship. Soi situates these moments within a broader critique of what he describes as mediocre political governance and its contribution to social and economic precarity. In response, many city dwellers turn to immediate joys - celebrating fleeting successes as acts of survival and resistance.

In this series, heaven operates both as a moral benchmark and an ultimate life goal, allowing Soi to expose the paradoxes of human behavior. While individuals profess belief in transcendent ideals, their actions frequently contradict these values. Moral responsibility is deferred, with immediate gratification prioritized over ethical consistency. The work also explores the uneasy but pervasive relationship between economic struggle and the pursuit of pleasure - a tension that is particularly visible in Nairobi’s urban landscape.

Michael Soi studied Fine Art and Art History at the Creative Arts Centre in Nairobi before joining the Kuona Trust’s Museum Art Studio in 1996. Soi has participated in numerous workshops and artist residencies and has exhibited extensively both locally and internationally. His work enjoys a strong global following among collectors and enthusiasts. He is the recipient of the Second Prize at the Manjano Competition and Exhibition (2011), was a finalist in the Kenya Constitutional Amendment Award (2000) and received the Top Forty Under 40 Award (Visual Arts Category) in 1999. Working from his studio at the GoDown Art Centre in Nairobi, Soi continues to produce and exhibit work that critically engages with contemporary urban life, securing his position as one of Kenya’s most influential contemporary artists.

Sujay Shah (Kenyan, b. 1991). Lives and works in Nairobi

Sujay Shah draws on science fiction, myth and history in his paintings, to create hybrid beings - human, animal, and machine - caught in states of transition and gestation. Influenced in part by Octavia Butler’s book Lilith’s Brood, in which humans are subjected to alien intervention and adaptation, this sense of hybridity runs throughout the work in recurring motifs such as cyborg bodies, allegorical creatures, and surreal figures.
Created during a period of deep personal and global instability, this body of work marks a turning point in Shah’s practice. The works reflect the sensation of standing on shifting ground. By allowing space for ambiguity, strangeness, and complexity, he moves away from narrowing definitions of identity and instead places trust in intuition and process. The figures in these paintings emerge from landscapes marked by both breakdown and renewal. Shah is interested in the forms of life that arise from damaged systems - ecological, cultural, political, bodily, and spiritual. Ruined environments give way to new structures, and bodies change by developing extra layers, new organs, or mechanical extensions. Neither fully formed nor resolved, these figures convey vulnerability and uncertainty. They exist at a midpoint between organic, technological, and mythic lineages. They are not symbols of dystopia or progress, but transitional entities learning how to survive within altered and disorienting environments. At times they appear to be morphing and adapting; at others, they seem suspended, caught in the fragile space between dissolution and assembly.
In a world saturated with images and narratives that dictate what to think and feel, Shah’s work remains open-ended, inviting viewers to slow down, question what they see, and accept the subjective nature of meaning itself.
Shah earned his BFA in Painting from the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) in 2013. After graduating, he lived in New York City, where he worked as a studio assistant to artists Paul Bloodgood and Anne Chu, an experience that deeply influenced his early artistic development. Shah has exhibited internationally in the United States (Savannah and New York), France, India, and Abu Dhabi. His work is part of the permanent collection at the Savannah College of Art and Design. His first solo exhibition, Forgive Us for Our Skins, opened at Circle Art Gallery’s new space in Nairobi in 2023. In 2024, he held his first museum solo exhibition, The Slant of Thirsting Mouths, at the SCAD Museum of Art in Atlanta. Group exhibitions include Luminous Riveries (2024), Gallery Dotwalk, India, Fictions (2022), Various Small Fires (2021), and I Will See What I Want to See(2019), all at Circle Art Gallery, If Not Now (2018) at the Cave Bureau, and Imperial Silhouettes (2024) at the Rizq Art Initiative in Abu Dhabi. Residencies include 32° East at the Ugandan Arts Trust in Kampala and The Factory in Lamu. He has taken part in the 1-54 London Contemporary African Art Fair (2023) and Art Paris (2024). In 2022, Shah was awarded the Writers Artists Travel Fellowship (WAFT) to the Venice Biennale by Wangechi Mutu Studio.

Dickens Otieno (Kenyan, b. 1979). Lives and works in Nairobi

Dickens Otieno’s tapestries use and draw attention to the potential beauty in objects that would otherwise be dismissed as useless, and discarded. Aluminium cans are shredded and woven into sculptural fabrics in a process informed by the weaving of natural materials such as papyrus, raffia or palm that he observed growing up. Otieno’s mother was a tailor and he spent many hours in her workshop amongst lesos and kitenges, whose colours and patterns have since influenced his aesthetic. This engagement with textile grows from an interest in the way pattern, colour and iconography are used to imbue functional objects with meaning and identity. Otieno draws on his immediate physical surroundings, particularly the urban environment in his native Nairobi, to create his compositions. Objects piled high in markets, the constantly shifting skyline, and the pockets of nature within the concrete and steel haze of the city, have become sources of inspiration for his richly hued, increasingly sculptural forms.

Otieno has had solo exhibitions in Kenya and the USA: Mtaani, Steve Turner, Los Angeles (2021), Mabati Tailor, Circle Art Gallery (2020) and Trails, Circle Art Gallery (2023). He has participated in numerous group exhibitions locally and internationally including: East African Encounters, Cromwell Place, London (2021); See Here, Old Neals Auction House, Nottingham (2018); Africa/Africa, Total Arts Courtyard Gallery, Al Quoz, Dubai (2018); Young Guns, Circle Art Gallery, Nairobi (2017); The Third Dimension, Circle Art Gallery (2016); UNI-FORM MULTI-FORM, Roots Contemporary, Nairobi (2016); Paint and Metal, National Museum of Nairobi (2016). Otieno has exhibited at international art fairs including Art Dubai and Eye of the Collector with Circle Art Gallery (2023) and Untitled Art Fair, Miami with Steve Turner Gallery (2022). Residencies include the Tilleard Artist Residency in Lamu and a fellowship in Italy at the Civitella Ranieri Foundation.

His work features in various collections including the A.R.M Holdings collection, the Africa First collection, ARAK collection, BASMOCA collection, Fahard Bakhitar collection, Fondation Gandur pour l'Art Geneva, Kamita Art Collection, Leridon Collection, Perez Museum collection, Qambani Collection, TAAT collection and the Waugh McDonald collection. In 2025 he was shortlisted for the Loewe Foundation Craft Prize.

Tabitha Wa Thuku (Kenya, b. 1963). Lives and works in Kitengela, Kenya

Born in the year of Independence, Tabitha Wa Thuku began her creative practice as a young, self-taught artist and one of the only female artists of her generation. With a career approaching three decades, Wa Thuku has made a name for herself as a painter unencumbered by convention, her works distinguished by a varied palette which ranges from subtle browns to rich reds. These two small paintings beautifully render nature, a subject to which Wa Thuku has returned constantly.

Tabitha Wa Thuku has created and exhibited consistently since 1988. She originally studied textiles and clothing technology at Kenya Polytechnic, then later, from 1996 to 1999, attended the Buruburu Institute of Fine Arts. Wa Thuku had undertaken various workshops and residencies to develop a wide range of techniques, demonstrated in her extensive body of work. In addition to her own artistic production, she has also worked in various organizations as an art educator, teaching and mentoring children and young artists.

Wa Thuku has exhibited regularly throughout her career in Kenya and abroad, including in The Netherlands, Italy, Hong Kong and Denmark, and her work is included in private and public collections in Kenya, including those of the National Museum of Kenya, the Safaricom collection, PwC and MMC Africa Law. She had a major retrospective exhibition 'Seasons within a Season' at Circle Art Gallery in 2024.

Rasto Cyprian (Kenyan b. 2001). Living and working in Nairobi

Rasto Cyprian is a graduate from Presbyterian University of East Africa where he studied Education Arts with a major in English and Literature.

His journey as an artist began in 2013 at twelve years old after he discovered an art program offered by the Uweza Foundation, a prominent NGO in Kibera where he grew up. After two years in the program, he developed enough confidence to begin painting on canvas. As his interest in art grew, Rasto sought out other art spaces in his local community to hone his skills and gain exposure to other artists, such as Onyis Martin, a mixed media artist.

His work is inspired by time and how people can actually travel through it and enjoy past moments. Besides Onyis Martin; Rasto has also been influenced by other artists such Francis Bacon and Chuck Close. Literature and the works of the old Italian masters also shape his work and technique.

Rasto’s creative process involves the reductive method as he scrubs off brush and pencil strokes, then goes back to add stencil and collage on top. He tends to embrace both vibrant and muted colors combined with a patterned background.

Evans Mbugua, (Kenyan b. 1979) lives and works in Paris

Evans Mbugua is a graduate of the École des Beaux-Arts de Pau in 2005, where he trained in graphic design and began his professional career in Toulouse as an art director in visual communication. In 2012, he relocated to Paris and committed himself fully to his artistic practice. His first gallery exhibitions took place in 2015, followed by his first solo exhibition in Paris in 2016, and then in London in 2017.

Since then, his work has gained international recognition and has been presented in numerous gallery exhibitions and art fairs across Europe, Africa, Asia, and North America. His paintings and sculptures were shown at the 19th Asian Art Biennale of Bangladesh (2022), the 59th Venice Art Biennale (2022) at AKKA Project gallery, and the 14th Dakar Biennale (2022) at Galerie Arte. From 21 Jan - 25 Feb 2026 he had a Solo exhibition "Untold Stories" at Circle Art Gallery.  

James Kagima (Kenyan, b. 1998). Lives and works in Nairobi, Kenya

James Kagima is an artist and designer. At an early age, Kagima was drawn to Catholic religious art and symbolism as seen in the stained glass windows, sculptures and paintings in churches he and his family frequented. His early influences also stemmed from picture books and comics, influences still seen in his work today.

In 2016, as he pursued a degree in Architecture, Kagima also ventured into pencil portraiture, and through the Safari Mentoring Arts Program began to work in different media which he then incorporated into his practice.

He has previously exhibited at Art installation at the National Museum, Affordable art show in 2022 and 2020 at the national museum and the Postcard Africa group exhibition at Alliance Francais, Nigeria in 2022.

Theresa Musoke (Ugandan b. 1944). Lives and works in KampalaTheresa Musoke is a formally experimental semi-abstract painter who has been celebrated for her expressive portrayals of wildlife. Using a range of mediums and techniques to develop her imagery, Musoke allows the suggestive nature of dyed canvas to guide her painting into evocative forms of animals and landscapes. Over her career she has developed a distinctive visual language blending astute, sensitive draughtsmanship with painterly experimentation.

Musoke was the first female artist to obtain a degree from the Margaret Trowell School of Fine Arts at Makerere University in 1963. She went on to win the painting prize in 1965 and obtained a scholarship to study for a postgraduate diploma in Printmaking at the Royal College of Art in London in 1965. She later won a scholarship from the Rockefeller Foundation to continue her studies at the University of Pennsylvania. On her return to Kampala, Musoke taught at Makerere University before relocating to Nairobi in 1976.

Musoke has been a highly influential figure in Kenyan and Ugandan art, not only for her celebrated visual practice but also as a distinguished educator. She lived in Kenya for over twenty years, teaching at the University of Nairobi and Kenyatta University. Throughout this time, Musoke exhibited frequently in local galleries such as Paa Ya Paa, Gallery Watatu and the African Heritage House. Her selected solo and group exhibitions include a solo show at the Uganda Museum, 1965; Sanaa: Contemporary Art from East Africa, Commonwealth Institute, London, 1984; Pioneer Women of the Arts, Nairobi Gallery, 2018; A Retrospective of Three Artists: Theresa Musoke, Tabatha wa Thuku, Yony Waite, Circle Art Gallery, 2022. Her work featured in the travelling group show Mwili akili Na Roho, at the Royal Academy, London and Haus Der Kunst, Munich.

She is featured in the Phaidon book, African Artists and had a solo exhibition at 1-54 Art Fair, London in October 2024. In April 2025 she had a retrospective exhibition, The Presence of Living Things, spanning six decades of her art practice, at Circle Art Gallery.

Jonathan Gathaara Sölanke Fraser (Kenyan, b. 1995). Lives and works in Nairobi

Jonathan Gathaara Sölanke Fraser is a multidisciplinary artist working across various media living and working in Nairobi. Fraser studied Fine Art at Kenyatta University. Previous exhibitions include I Will See What I Want To See, 2019 at Circle Art Gallery; If Not Now, 2018 at Cave Bureau, Nairobi; Line: The Basic Element, 2018 at One Off Contemporary Art Gallery, Nairobi; Stranger Times, 2017 at Circle Art Gallery; Anatomy of Me, 2017 at The Art Space, Nairobi.

Fraser uses drawing as a means to engage with the world around him through a varied approach that includes observational sketching, plant pressing, digital image collection and writing. This multifarious set of activities presents a unique opportunity to activate his interaction with his environment. This interactivity with the world strives towards a more internal and intuitive “knowing”; a knowing born less of experience and learning and more of dreaming. Fraser works through drawing to complicate meaning as well as create new relationships between objects and ideas. Disparate elements in the drawing field are allowed to take up similar qualities in space, eschewing the various contexts they would typically exist in. The drawing field itself is broken down so that one’s conventional approach to looking at and understanding it is revised. The drawings are energetic and enigmatic and in this way encourage the viewer to participate actively in the processes the artist himself uses.

Fraser invites the viewer to consider the transformation, big or small, that is brought by even the slightest shift in the conditions under which we encounter, or are presented with an object. This process of de-contextualization - sometimes subtle, other times abrupt - is aided by repetition of certain motifs and objects within and across several compositions, a gesture which extends them across space and time. This reiteration and multiplication stretches the distance between the initial and final encounter with an object within the work. In doing so, it engenders a slowing down and increased attentiveness to these groups of interactive symbols and how they function according to the illogic of Fraser’s environments. In these works, the artist emphasises the contingent nature of meaning, highlighting how our reading of objects is dependent on their relationships with other objects, with space, and with time. More information about Jonathan Frasers practise can be found on jonathan-fraser.com