"I discovered that black, like all colors, exists in a range of shades."
Nedia Were (b. 1989, Eldoret, Kenya) is a self-taught painter based in Nairobi, among the most compelling voices of contemporary Kenyan art. His monumental figures, rendered in luminous shades of black pigment in a conscious dialogue with Kerry James Marshall, inhabit lush natural environments drawn from the tropical flora of western Kenya: spaces of transformation, rebirth and Afro-optimism that celebrate Black beauty and restore the African figure to the history of portraiture. Raised by grandparents who were educators, he began drawing from the newspapers his grandfather brought home, later training himself as a signwriter. Since his sold-out debut with the "Mumwamu" series (2021), he has exhibited at the XIV Florence Biennale (2023), the Fondation Zinsou, Ouidah, and the Wall House Museum, Saint-Barthélemy, with a Sotheby's auction record set in London in 2022.