Graffiti art: Walls, wonderful murals take beauty all over town

Visual Arts Graffiti art: Walls, wonderful murals take beauty all over town Friday March 08 2024 The bedroom has a window frame looking out onto a thick forest, by Shadrack Nduati, in Nairobi’s Kileleshwa on February 20, 2024. Margaretta wa Gacheru | Nation Media Group Walls are being painted and beautified all over Nairobi. From Eastlands to Westlands, Kibera to Karen, they are called graffiti art or monumental murals, but they are springing up everywhere. You can find them in office blocks and hotels, outside City Market, and inside people’s private homes. Unfortunately, most murals go unsigned. They remain conceived by anonymous painters. Of course, we know Camille Wekesa as a brilliant muralist, and Bankslave as a renowned graffiti artist, one among many whose names may not be so familiar. Ironically, many of them began as sign writers but now the next generation has transformed signs into murals that cover whole walls inside and outside commercial shops as Chela Cherwon did in creating giant red roosters at Kukitu where fresh fried chicken is sold. When I heard one of my friends was having his whole new home covered in murals, I asked if I could come see it. That is...