To me, art is like breathing. It is not something you think about, it is something you just do.”
That is Paul Gitau Kabiru’s answer to the question: What is art to you? The 25-year-old second year student at the University of Nairobi is a pencil hyperrealism artist, who says his talent started manifesting right from childhood.
“Growing up, I would always run into a lot of trouble with my mother,” Paul recounts. “We used to live in a wooden house and I would always scribble or draw something on the walls with charcoal. One time I went as far as taking used engine oil and ‘painting’ the couch with it. Of course I received a proper beating afterwards, but looking back, I now realise there was a gift inside me that was just waiting to be discovered.”
“My desk and books were just a mess. They had graffiti all over. Sometimes I would just be in class taking notes and I would write an alphabetical letter in a funny way. At that time, it was as if I was obsessed. I couldn’t stop drawing. And before I knew it, a whole page would be filled with some bizarre scribbling, which I would call art.”
When he finished high school in 2014 aged 16, he knew he wanted to enrol for a degree programme that would further his aspirations in art. However, he lacked the much needed knowledge and information on what such a course would entail. He thought that all Bachelor of Arts (BA) degrees are about the arts.
“I was admitted to University of Nairobi in 2016 for a BA in Political Science and Public Administration degree. I thought of changing courses but decided to go along with it as I found it interesting. However, things turned sour really fast as I realised the challenges of adulthood. I was short on money to pay my school fees so I was forced to drop out of school in 2017. I started working in a small hotel, washing dishes and sometimes cooking, to sustain myself,” Paul says.
At this time, he notes that he would also attend design classes at his university and practice his skills whenever he could find the time and the money to pay for materials. But even this became too expensive to sustain, so he had to give it up. He notes after this, his life got bleaker. At some point, he even became homeless for a year.
“All along and through all my struggles, however, I kept drawing. I would always find a pencil and a piece of paper and just draw. It was one of my coping mechanisms to the challenges that I was going through. In 2020, however, things started looking up. My skills had significantly improved and I started getting commissions from people to draw their portraits. I remember once receiving a call from a stranger. I do not even know where she got my number, and she said she would pay me Sh24,000 for a portrait. That is how I got my life back in order.”
Paul says when he started drawing, he would do coloured images but he received negative reviews about the art he was producing.
“That was probably a blessing in disguise. I love drawing in black and white. It is much more difficult to get it right as you have to take a person who has colour and remove it, then transition the image into art without losing the originality. But if you get it right, the drawings will just have a much deeper touch to it. I think coloured art, although I have nothing against it, conceals certain aspects and emotions that can only be experienced in black and white.”
Currently, Paul, under his brand name GK Studios, does art pieces whose prices range between Sh6,000 and Sh50,000 depending on the size and finishing. He notes that he is mostly contracted by private citizens, although he has done portraits of several public figures. This, he says, has given him a new lease of life as he has been able to go back to school, as well as cater for his needs and those of his family.
“Talent without direction is dangerous, and school teaches you that. It instils discipline and values in you, which is why I went back to school. Your values and discipline in turn sustain your talent.”
On the challenges in his practice, he says the biggest is access to quality materials. He notes, for instance, that he regularly has to import a pack of six pencils produced in Germany at a cost of Sh3,600.
“I think we also lack an appreciation for art in Kenya. It is definitely much better than it was before but we still have a long way to go. Sometimes I get jokers in my inbox who want a portrait for Sh500, which shows you that person lacks appreciation of the work that goes into making the piece. On average it takes me two weeks just to complete one piece.”
Paul hopes to open a walk-in studio and art gallery where clients can walk in and get to sample his work even before they commission their own pieces. At the moment, however, he says people can do that and contact him through his social media handles, GK Studios.
