Contemporary Art in Context: Thandiwe Muriu

Thandiwe Muriu is a self-taught Kenyan photographer whose photographs reveal a passion for color, texture, and precision. Her body of work includes commercial, fashion, and portrait photography, and she is internationally renowned for photographs that are part-fashion, part-portrait. These works are a mix of mesmerizing textiles, traditional cultural practices, and stunning new visions of African womanhood.

Muriu’s art is characterized by her keen observation of Kenyan culture and the recontextualization of everyday objects. Bottle caps, plastic combs, and even sink drains are incorporated into wearable pieces for her sitters. Her artistic journey started in commercial photography (Vogue magazine covers were an early influence), branching out into portraits to satisfy her creative side. Her study of the layouts, lighting, and poses convinced Muriu that she could create fine art from photography.

A Celebration of African Beauty
Muriu’s work goes far beyond creating appealing imagery to express the unique nature of African beauty. She has pared this message down to a celebration of textiles, hairstyles, and distinctive features. Her photographic journey has also been a personal one, always keeping in mind her own struggles with her beauty, identity, and perceptions of being a modern woman in a traditional culture. Her photographs often emphasize the rich history of complex, natural hairstyles of Kenyans, drawing from historical elements to inform contemporary generations about their past. Her work also highlights Kenyans’ dark skin tone and encourages women to celebrate it.

Madam President comes from Muriu’s Material Culture series, a celebration of the elaborate head wraps worn by many African women and inspired by her mother’s fabric headpieces. Head wraps, an integral part of African culture, transform a simple piece of fabric into what the artist has called a “crown.” The patterns in Madam President are particularly stunning in their similarity to the woven kente cloth of Ghana. Although the fabric backdrop and woman’s garment create a camouflage effect, the model’s striking features and unique eyewear reflect high-fashion photography.

Art History: African Photography
Photography arrived to Africa in the mid-1800s, introduced by colonial Europeans. In the early 1900s, African photographers established studios in major cities and began creating work that reflected their daily lives. Traveling photographer Antoine Freitas (1919–1990, Congo) spent much of his life capturing private portraits and events. Keita Seydou’s (1923–2001, Mali) brilliant portraits of Malians show the dignity of their everyday lives. Santé Seyrou (b. 1943, Burkina Faso) documented the transition of African nations to autonomy in the 1960s, emphasizing scenes of traditional indigenous events. Zanele Muholi (b. 1972, South Africa) photographs the LGBTQ+ community in their country, exploring gender, perceptions of “Africaness,” and the cultural diversity of South Africa.

About the Artist
Thandiwe Muriu was born in 1990 and raised in Nairobi, Kenya. At fourteen, her father taught her how to use a digital camera, and she quickly immersed herself in the medium, posting portraits of her sisters with homemade backdrops and props on social media. When she began receiving requests for commissions, she realized that photography could be a career. By the age of seventeen, she was working professionally. After graduating with a marketing degree from United States International University in Nairobi, she landed her first solo advertising campaign and was soon photographing for large companies in East Africa. Her early personal work was inspired by her years of working as a woman in the male-dominated advertising field, where she constantly faced the question of women’s role in society. Her portrait series are a record of both her artistic and personal journey in twenty-first century Africa.

ARTIST Q&A
What are some of the biggest influences on your work?
TM: The biggest influence is where I live; a lot of my work relates to processing my culture and the traditions that we live with and trying to find my place within those traditions as a modern woman. Kenya can be a very traditional country, and there are many cultural rules, especially for women, and so questioning and exploring how I feel about those is the starting point for many of my images.

Visually, I am really inspired by the way Kenyan people live. We have this habit of taking objects and using them in the wrong way because Kenya is a very poor country—many people live below the poverty line—and the unique thing about this habit is that you see very creative expressions of people solving their own problems, creating art pieces without even knowing it. For me, thatʼs a really big source of inspiration. For example, Iʼve seen a group of children taking the caps from soda bottles and hammering them down, and then they use them to play cards. Something like that immediately inspires me to make a pair of glasses from hammered bottle caps.

What is a typical workday like for you?
TM: As a photographer, I spend a lot of time in front of a computer, which is something I didnʼt know when I began this career. I spend a big part of my time researching and looking for inspiration online because part of my work involves designing the clothes that my subject wears. I spend a lot of time looking through fashion magazines and editorial shoots, and then I might spend some time doing emails…. I do a lot of meetings with different people I work with because I have an idea in my head as a creative, but I need to be able to communicate it to the people I work with, and so we’ll create mood boards, which is basically a visual sketch of the idea in my head. Then Iʼll talk to the people who are coming on board to help me create it. I also love gardening, so I always try and spend some time outside every day.

What is the role of your support community (assistants, art dealers, collectors, etc.)? How do you develop this network of support?
TM: One of the biggest lessons Iʼve learned thatʼs been really helpful in my career is realizing that I am good at making the art, but there are many different elements that go into an art career, and there are people who are better at doing that than I am, so I work with a gallery who helps me sell the work, and an agent who helps find/negotiate and manage opportunities.

I mentioned that I work with a team to create the images—I need to do hair, and I need to do makeup to create my images, and the clothes need to [communicate] all those visual ideas I have in my head that I donʼt have the necessary skill to execute, so I need people to help me do that.

Collectors are also important because a big part of my work is research—they can provide access to research materials that might otherwise be difficult for me to find. Collectors are also great to have conversations with around your work and to see the impact it has on people.

Of course, we all know social media is incredibly important. You can create the best art in the world, but if nobody knows about it, it will be difficult to have a career as an artist. And so [with this] help, you tell your story to people outside of your network or your area of influence. I live and work in Kenya, but Iʼve done interviews with journalists in other countries, so maybe somebody in France or the US or China now knows about my work because they wrote an article.

I think itʼs important to ask for help. We donʼt always have the answers, and so one of the ways I create this network of support is reaching out to people who are where I hope to be in the future, but I donʼt quite know how to get there, and asking them for advice or asking them if they know somebody who could help me.

What advice do you have for aspiring young photographers, or K–12 students pursuing an interest in photography?
TM: Experiment and spend as much time as you can shooting. The one thing you can do if you want a career in photography and the best thing you can do is to develop a unique style, and the only way you find that is by experimenting and trying things over and over again. And remember to have fun—itʼs art, enjoy it!

Discussion
Ask students, “What are the differences between an everyday selfie and a photo that gets exhibited in a museum or gallery? Who gets to decide?” After some discussion, lead students into an examination of how backgrounds, props, and other elements contribute to the narrative and emotions captured in a photograph. Next, introduce students to Madam President and Thandiwe Muriu’s work.

Studio Experiences

Plan and execute a portrait photograph of a classmate, friend, or an important person in your life. How can the background and setting of your photograph help inform the viewer about the person you chose? What kind of emotions or feelings might your photo emphasize? Will props or objects add to your message?
Create a two-dimensional work of art that emphasizes pattern and design. Can your pattern represent an idea, an emotion, or a story? Choose art materials that you think will best match your pattern.
Invent a new alter ego or persona to use in a self-portrait photograph. Each part of the image, from the background to the clothes or accessories you wear, should help establish the identity of your persona. Who is this person? How is this persona different from you? How is it similar? What might this individual want to accomplish?

Patterns of Identity