Jimmy Ogonga
Kenyan artist
Jimmy Ogonga is a Kenyan multi-media artist of international caliber. Born in 1977 in Nairobi, Kenya, Ogonga taught himself fine arts by drawing portraits; these images were often of political figures, the people whose stories and activities he was being exposed to while growing in East Africa. He has traveled to many countries, exhibiting in African and European art galleries. He considers his mission to be the project of recreating African heroes through art. Ogonga started his sculptural works in the 1990s, and ten years later many of the collectors of his work have been drawn to his curved-wood and welded-metallic images. He lives and works in Nairobi.
He founded the Nairobi Arts Trust in 2001.