Redhill Art Gallery feels like a home in setting, but that is not all, it has a knack for nitpicking some of the finest artists for its exhibitions, and this time it was no different.
It currently plays host to Mwass Githinji, a gifted artist of the modern generation, in an exhibition dubbed Beasts and Petals.
Mwass paints like a master born in the wrong generation, his art is venerable, symbolic, and creates a nostalgic feeling of days when artists would everything on the canvas. Words do little justice to the detailed intricacy of his paintings.
He describes himself as an artist from birth. As a child, while his peers played, he would seclude himself, sweep the ground, and for the whole day, he would doodle and sketch on the earth for miles and yards. He recalls little about playing with his peers. In his years at school, he remembers getting whipped for drawing too much, drawing on textbooks, drawing at the inappropriate time.
Art was calling with a hold on him.
After high school, he wanted to be a full-time artist but he lacked the understanding of how to make this a reality. He grew up in Nakuru, which he describes as seeing nothing artistic going on. He left for Nairobi and joined Buruburu Institute of Fine Arts, a playground for some of the finest artists in the country, an accolade he doesn’t veer far from.
He dropped out after a year because of school fee issues, which he didn’t perceive as a loss because he had gotten everything he needed from school.
He is a student of art history with a particular fascination for renaissance period artists but his work by far, has borrowed from every period in time that art has existed in.
“If you ask me what I borrowed from the renaissance artists, they were quite the craftsmen. They were very articulate to what they wanted. I like how they dig their compositions. The impressionists were quite innovative and did things differently.
They even used brushes that were different from the other periods. They created another level of innovativeness. I have something from every generation that describes the unique nature of my work.”
Francis Bacon is, however, his biggest inspiration.
“I feel like he pushed himself. I always want to look at artists who have pushed themselves and who have broken from the conventional way of doing things. I am really focused on artists who have broken the boundaries and tried to transcend to another level because, at the end of the day, that is what makes great art. For one to become a master, you have to study other masters and try to break what they did; that is my philosophy.”
His parents ended up being supportive of his art, not by choice but because of his sheer grit with his call.
A view of artworks by Mwass Githinji pictured at Redhill Art Gallery on March 19, 2025.
Photo credit: Billy Ogada | Nation Media Group
“I was quite stubborn. I didn’t pass so well in high school, which I feel was a good thing because had I gotten a good grade, my parents would have been forced to make me do something else.”
Beasts and Petals is largely inspired by his love for philosophy. It took him a year to prepare for it, to which he says 4 months were solely spent on reading and researching.
“I believe as an artist, your work isn’t just to attack canvases; you express yourself yes but then again you have to strive for an intellectual mindset. When creating a piece of work, it has to come from somewhere; you have to ask yourself on what inspires and informs your work.”
His art is grotesquely morbid, and he describes it as touching every soul.
“My work doesn’t represent any region; it represents humanity; this is an archive of humanity and what we go through. The human condition will always be here regardless of time, ethnicity, whatever it is.”
Oil pastels take a huge chunk of the mixed media that he works with. And his work, like many great artists that have been before him, speaks and even awes him. He is married to all of them, and there are no favorites.
He employs a style he calls the modern chiaroscuro, which is the use of strong contrasts between light and dark to affect a whole composition. It’s a balance of delicate and bold, sharp and yet dainty to the eye. Mwass plays with detailed finesse like a second name.
One of the greatest masters of light that have heavily inspired this series is Caravaggio, an Italian painter of the renaissance era. Whether you are looking at The Bride, Shadows in the Game, Life in Flash or any other painting in the exhibition, it is hard to pick a favourite because each mural stands out on its own.
The Genesis of Chaos Oil Pastels and Oil Paints on Canvas artwork by Mwass Githinji pictured on March 19, 2025 at Redhill art gallery.
Photo credit: Billy Ogada | Nation Media Group
Red is a constant theme in his works, a preference for Mwass because of its evocative nature: “Red creates an emotion that you cannot quite miss. It is part of my palate. It demands attention and you cannot stop looking at it.”
Beasts and Petals has a lot of animals and plants in its compositions. Everything appearing on the murals is symbolic in nature. From horses to plants to the skull of a honey badger, the subjects of Mwass’ portraits go beyond what you see. They are as poetic as they are beautiful and even when they are ugly, they are beautifully ugly.
Horses have several purposes in his works. They act as witnesses because being beasts of war, they have seen the ugliness of human chaos. They also act as transporters, moving showing majesty and motion. They show power and are symbolic of the knight piece on a chess board which to Mwass is unpredictable in its movement.
What Mwass carries in his persona is aura. What he bears in speech is the pointy end of a pin, sharp and what Beasts and Petals showcases, is a man of the hour, born for the moment and the rest of us, living in his time.
