Visual artist Christine Chege’s earliest memories of art are of when her father taught her and her siblings how to sketch.
Her father encouraged them not to draw straight, continuous lines but to break them up.
Years later, she has explored sketching, acrylics, and oil painting. While she enjoyed art from a young age and visited galleries and art shows, she started pursuing it professionally after starting her first job in 2023. She taught herself through research and YouTube tutorials.
“As a beginner, it was easy to start with acrylics since they dry quickly. I learnt to manipulate them so that they don’t dry out as fast,” she explains.
After about a year of painting, colleagues and friends started asking her to create commissioned pieces. She has since sold her work to colleagues, friends and clients online.
When she was comfortable painting with acrylics, she ventured into exploring oils because they don’t dry fast and the luminous quality they give finished paintings. She carries acrylics when she is flying.
“I am learning to be patient and to be careful with the paintings themselves, for when you move close to the paintings, it smudges,” she says.
Chege describes herself as warm and vibrant and says this is reflected in the colours and subjects she chooses. She expresses herself through expressionism, still art, realism, and landscape painting. In her expressionistic style, she paints what she feels on the inside.
While she used to be rigid in her technique and relied on reference images, she now paints more intuitively. She paints when she is happy and when she is sad, using the canvas to process what she is experiencing.
“If a painting is about sadness, I wouldn’t want it to be about sadness at the end. I would want it to have hope by introducing flowers and vibrant colours,” she says.
Yellow, blue, red, orange, pink and lilac feature mostly in her work, while sunflowers, grasses, roses and hydrangeas are some of the natural elements due to the sense of calm they evoke.
A piece titled Happy Bubble depicts colourful flowers in a basket and was inspired by the calmness she felt while spending time surrounded by grass and flowers.
An untitled work shows a woman lying on grass with flowers around her. It was inspired by a time when she felt overwhelmed at work, and she imagined that lying on the grass would help her feel grounded and release heavy feelings.
“My paintings are inspired by wanting people to get a break from the hardship of life. I want people to see that life isn't that bad and you can enjoy life,” she says.
Her professional work as a geospatial engineer involves problem-solving, a skill that she says also comes in handy when working with art clients and figuring out how to turn ideas into finished pieces.
A geospatial engineer.
It involves problem-solving, a skill she says also comes in handy when working with art clients, who are also from her engineering work, and figuring out how to turn their ideas into finished pieces.
It was this desire to share her experience of art with others that led her to establish Kiri Arts Studio.
“I wanted to build a community where not only am I enjoying the art, but other people can enjoy art as much as I do. My target audience is working adults looking for a creative break from the demands of their everyday lives,” she says.
Kiri Arts Studio doesn’t have a permanent physical space yet. Chege currently organises painting events in rented restaurants, gardens and other suitable venues. The events attract about 20 participants, while the wider team consists of about 10 people. The studio also hosts monthly painting events and art exhibitions.
“My vision is to start a physical studio and gallery where people can attend art workshops, take short courses, create, experience exhibitions and unwind,” she says.