Paul Njihia
Chorus of Beings
Curated by Thom Ogonga
The Future That Never Was
Oil on Canvas
108 x 111 cm
Kshs 215 000
Oil on Canvas
108 x 111 cm
Kshs 215 000
Artist Statement
The series, Nairobi Sisi Tv is an ongoing series of oil paintings which feature figures painted from an aerial perspective. It’s influenced by the view of overhead cameras: CCTVs.
This body of work examines the shifting power dynamics embedded in everyday life. In recent years, CCTV cameras have become an ordinary presence in our daily lives; on streets, workplaces and public spaces. While they are presented as instruments of security, their deeper function lies in surveillance. Surveillance is not neutral; it is an act performed by those in positions of power upon those below them. The aerial camera view becomes a symbol of this imbalance: visible to all, yet operated by unseen watchers. This in turn creates a constant awareness of being observed, shaping behavior and reinforcing hierarchies. Through this work, I interrogate the tension between protection and policing, visibility and invisibility, freedom and control.
Through these paintings, I invite the viewer to see the figures in the paintings from the camera lens view.
Paul Njihia - Nairobi - April 2026
The series, Nairobi Sisi Tv is an ongoing series of oil paintings which feature figures painted from an aerial perspective. It’s influenced by the view of overhead cameras: CCTVs.
This body of work examines the shifting power dynamics embedded in everyday life. In recent years, CCTV cameras have become an ordinary presence in our daily lives; on streets, workplaces and public spaces. While they are presented as instruments of security, their deeper function lies in surveillance. Surveillance is not neutral; it is an act performed by those in positions of power upon those below them. The aerial camera view becomes a symbol of this imbalance: visible to all, yet operated by unseen watchers. This in turn creates a constant awareness of being observed, shaping behavior and reinforcing hierarchies. Through this work, I interrogate the tension between protection and policing, visibility and invisibility, freedom and control.
Through these paintings, I invite the viewer to see the figures in the paintings from the camera lens view.
Paul Njihia - Nairobi - April 2026
Watching with De Boyz
Mixed Media on Canvas
113 x 111 cm
Kshs 211 000
Mixed Media on Canvas
113 x 111 cm
Kshs 211 000
Untitled
Mixed Media on Canvas
84 x 108 cm
Kshs 174 000
Mixed Media on Canvas
84 x 108 cm
Kshs 174 000
PAUL NJIHIA
Paul Njihia began his art career in 2010 with commissioned portraits while still in University. After completing school in 2013 he became a fulltime artist and later joined Kuona Trust Art Centre in January 2014. At the moment he is based at Kobo Studios in Nairobi, Kenya.
Njihia’s artworks have been acquired by collections such as the Nairobi Contemporary Art Institute (NCAI), AKA Collection in Qatar, Sharjah Art Foundation, among others. He has exhibited in Kenya and abroad. Solo Exhibitions include Recess: when time stood still, online exhibition, Gahiga Art (2021); Work In Progress, Kobo Trust Gallery, Nairobi (2018) and Theatre Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany (2015). Notable group exhibitions include Common Ground, Nairobi Contemporary Art Institute (NCAI), Nairobi (2023); African Identities, AKKA Project, Venice (2022); Young Guns, Circle Art Gallery, Nairobi (2017); Wrong Number, Kuona Trust Gallery, Nairobi (2016)
Njihia was an Artist in Residence at Nafasi Art Space, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (2016) and Konstanz Theatre, Konstanz, Germany (2015).
In 2014, he was awarded the Most Promising Male Artist, by the National Museum of Kenya.
Paul Njihia’s work mainly comprises paintings which capture subjects and scenes that relate to his personal experiences. He uses different subjects such as school students and other groupings of people to highlight various issues. At the moment he is exploring how collective thinking and conformity are deeply rooted in society and how this relates to the school system.
Paul Njihia began his art career in 2010 with commissioned portraits while still in University. After completing school in 2013 he became a fulltime artist and later joined Kuona Trust Art Centre in January 2014. At the moment he is based at Kobo Studios in Nairobi, Kenya.
Njihia’s artworks have been acquired by collections such as the Nairobi Contemporary Art Institute (NCAI), AKA Collection in Qatar, Sharjah Art Foundation, among others. He has exhibited in Kenya and abroad. Solo Exhibitions include Recess: when time stood still, online exhibition, Gahiga Art (2021); Work In Progress, Kobo Trust Gallery, Nairobi (2018) and Theatre Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany (2015). Notable group exhibitions include Common Ground, Nairobi Contemporary Art Institute (NCAI), Nairobi (2023); African Identities, AKKA Project, Venice (2022); Young Guns, Circle Art Gallery, Nairobi (2017); Wrong Number, Kuona Trust Gallery, Nairobi (2016)
Njihia was an Artist in Residence at Nafasi Art Space, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (2016) and Konstanz Theatre, Konstanz, Germany (2015).
In 2014, he was awarded the Most Promising Male Artist, by the National Museum of Kenya.
Paul Njihia’s work mainly comprises paintings which capture subjects and scenes that relate to his personal experiences. He uses different subjects such as school students and other groupings of people to highlight various issues. At the moment he is exploring how collective thinking and conformity are deeply rooted in society and how this relates to the school system.
Heading Home
Mixed Media on Canvas
97 x 120 cm
Kshs 194 000
Mixed Media on Canvas
97 x 120 cm
Kshs 194 000
Chorus of Beings - Curatorial Statement - Thom Ogonga
Chorus of Beings brings together two dynamic emerging artists - Paul Njihia and Newton Eshivachi - whose practices explore the dynamics of physical human presence within everyday spaces. The exhibition considers how bodies inhabit, negotiate, and imprint themselves upon the environments they traverse. Figures emerge not as isolated subjects, but as relational entities - caught in moments of proximity, distance, and subtle exchange - where gesture, posture, and spatial arrangement become carriers of meaning.
At the heart of the exhibition is an attentiveness to the ordinary: shared public settings and transient, in-between spaces that often go unnoticed. Within these sites, the artists trace the quiet choreography of daily life, foregrounding tensions between visibility and invisibility, presence and absence. Bodies dissolve, overlap, and fragment, suggesting the instability of identity and the porous boundaries between self and other.
Chorus of Beings ultimately proposes presence as something collective rather than singular - a chorus rather than a solo. In this gathering of forms, the exhibition gestures toward a shared field of existence shaped by memory, emotion, power, truth, and fleeting encounters. What emerges is a meditation on how we are continually constituted through others, our surroundings, and the subtle, often unspoken rhythms of being together in space.
Njihia’s Nairobi Sisi TV comprises a body of work featuring figures rendered from an aerial perspective, drawing directly from the visual logic of CCTV surveillance. Influenced by the omnipresent gaze of overhead cameras, these paintings examine the shifting power dynamics embedded in everyday life. As CCTV systems become increasingly normalized across streets, workplaces, and public spaces, their function extends beyond security into the realm of surveillance.
Here, surveillance is understood not as neutral, but as an act performed by those in positions of power upon those below. The aerial viewpoint becomes a potent symbol of this imbalance: visible to all, yet controlled by unseen observers. This persistent condition of being watched shapes behavior, reinforcing hierarchies and internalized discipline. Njihia’s work interrogates the tensions between protection and policing, visibility and invisibility, freedom and control, inviting viewers to adopt the perspective of the camera lens while simultaneously questioning its authority.
Eshivachi’s practice is grounded in the belief that reality extends beyond what is immediately visible, and that what ought to be often stands in tension with what is. This dialectic - central to Metamodernism - forms the conceptual foundation of his work. Situated within this framework, his practice oscillates between sincerity and irony, hope and doubt, reflecting the complexities of contemporary experience.
Moving beyond naïve realism, Eshivachi employs Critical Realism to interrogate contemporary African societies. Rather than limiting his inquiry to surface appearances, he probes the underlying socio-cultural, economic, and political structures that produce observable conditions and behaviors. His work engages lived, material realities - everyday interactions that often stand in contradiction to the abstract ideals upheld by modernist institutions.
In scenes such as overcrowded public transport vehicles, Eshivachi foregrounds the realities of survival and necessity in tension with institutional frameworks of regulation, safety, and order. Working primarily with acrylic on canvas, he frequently depicts figures clad in prison uniforms within familiar environments. This recurring motif reflects a condition in which freedom and constraint coexist: the uniform functioning as a metaphor for the pervasive, often invisible systems of governance, discipline, and control that shape contemporary life.
Ultimately, Eshivachi’s practice extends a critical inquiry into identity, power, truth, and social control, encouraging viewers to question the systems and narratives that structure lived experience within contemporary African contexts.
Copyright 2026 Thom Ogonga
Chorus of Beings brings together two dynamic emerging artists - Paul Njihia and Newton Eshivachi - whose practices explore the dynamics of physical human presence within everyday spaces. The exhibition considers how bodies inhabit, negotiate, and imprint themselves upon the environments they traverse. Figures emerge not as isolated subjects, but as relational entities - caught in moments of proximity, distance, and subtle exchange - where gesture, posture, and spatial arrangement become carriers of meaning.
At the heart of the exhibition is an attentiveness to the ordinary: shared public settings and transient, in-between spaces that often go unnoticed. Within these sites, the artists trace the quiet choreography of daily life, foregrounding tensions between visibility and invisibility, presence and absence. Bodies dissolve, overlap, and fragment, suggesting the instability of identity and the porous boundaries between self and other.
Chorus of Beings ultimately proposes presence as something collective rather than singular - a chorus rather than a solo. In this gathering of forms, the exhibition gestures toward a shared field of existence shaped by memory, emotion, power, truth, and fleeting encounters. What emerges is a meditation on how we are continually constituted through others, our surroundings, and the subtle, often unspoken rhythms of being together in space.
Njihia’s Nairobi Sisi TV comprises a body of work featuring figures rendered from an aerial perspective, drawing directly from the visual logic of CCTV surveillance. Influenced by the omnipresent gaze of overhead cameras, these paintings examine the shifting power dynamics embedded in everyday life. As CCTV systems become increasingly normalized across streets, workplaces, and public spaces, their function extends beyond security into the realm of surveillance.
Here, surveillance is understood not as neutral, but as an act performed by those in positions of power upon those below. The aerial viewpoint becomes a potent symbol of this imbalance: visible to all, yet controlled by unseen observers. This persistent condition of being watched shapes behavior, reinforcing hierarchies and internalized discipline. Njihia’s work interrogates the tensions between protection and policing, visibility and invisibility, freedom and control, inviting viewers to adopt the perspective of the camera lens while simultaneously questioning its authority.
Eshivachi’s practice is grounded in the belief that reality extends beyond what is immediately visible, and that what ought to be often stands in tension with what is. This dialectic - central to Metamodernism - forms the conceptual foundation of his work. Situated within this framework, his practice oscillates between sincerity and irony, hope and doubt, reflecting the complexities of contemporary experience.
Moving beyond naïve realism, Eshivachi employs Critical Realism to interrogate contemporary African societies. Rather than limiting his inquiry to surface appearances, he probes the underlying socio-cultural, economic, and political structures that produce observable conditions and behaviors. His work engages lived, material realities - everyday interactions that often stand in contradiction to the abstract ideals upheld by modernist institutions.
In scenes such as overcrowded public transport vehicles, Eshivachi foregrounds the realities of survival and necessity in tension with institutional frameworks of regulation, safety, and order. Working primarily with acrylic on canvas, he frequently depicts figures clad in prison uniforms within familiar environments. This recurring motif reflects a condition in which freedom and constraint coexist: the uniform functioning as a metaphor for the pervasive, often invisible systems of governance, discipline, and control that shape contemporary life.
Ultimately, Eshivachi’s practice extends a critical inquiry into identity, power, truth, and social control, encouraging viewers to question the systems and narratives that structure lived experience within contemporary African contexts.
Copyright 2026 Thom Ogonga