This piece was acquired directly from Kang’ethe, who has been active in Kenya since the 1980s as a self-taught but prominent artist. He is a faithful chronicler of urban mobility and the chaos it can cause. Strauss & Co, which has auctioned his work, says Kang’ethe is most widely recognized for his intricate ink and charcoal works on paper. “Over the past three decades, he has developed two distinctive approaches: dense, narrative-rich line drawings often referred to as Outlinism, and his experimental smoke paintings, where soot, smudging, and soft tonal washes interact with precise ink outlines,” the auction house says. Kang’ethe’s work has been widely collected at home and abroad, and this is one of two terrific Kang’ethes now domiciled in the Roduza Collection.
