Thandiwe Muriu Kenya, b. 1990

Thandiwe Muriu (born 1990) is a Kenyan artist who examines themes of identity, culture, and female empowerment through her works. Her pieces are deeply inspired by African textile narratives, primarily the Ankara (wax) and the East African kanga fabric, which she uses as a canvas to redefine, celebrate, and remember.
Raised in Nairobi, where she still lives and works, she discovered photography at age 14. In her early 20’s, she successfully established a career as one of the few professional advertising photographers in Kenya. Shaped by both her experience of being self-taught and breaking out of the spaces of so-called “women’s work”, Muriu grappled with societal expectations surrounding the role of women, an experience that inspired her first series Camo, where she presents her vision of womanhood influenced by optic art, as well as the works of Malick Sidibé.
The convergence of historical references and contemporary aesthetics become mediums harnessed by Muriu as she contemplates how individuals and communities can thrive — not in spite of cultural legacies, but within them. Through her practice, she draws on and archives disappearing histories, transforming elements that are often undervalued — oral traditions, everyday life, and common objects — into dignified expressions of identity. A hallmark of Muriu’s work is the reflection on the role of history in informing present and future, and the need to protect communal memory against the erosion of time; encapsulated by the African Proverb, "We desire to bequeath two things to our children; the first one is roots, the other one is wings".

Since the commencement of her artistic career in 2020, Muriu’s work has been acquired by private and public collections such as the Leridon Collection, The Jean Pigozzi African Art Collection, Peter & Carla Schulting Collection, Photo Élysée Museum in Lausanne and the Hood Museum of Art in New Hampshire, USA. Some notable commissions include projects for Longchamp, the United Nations, Apple, and the Swiss Red Cross.
In 2020, she opened her first show, Colors of Africa, at 193 Gallery in Paris. More recently, her work has been presented at the 60th Venice Biennale Collateral Event Passengers in Transit (presented by the Centre for Contemporary Art Lagos), a solo show at New York University, I Am Because You Are, as well by Perrotin Gallery as part of the exhibition FEMMES! curated by Pharrell Williams. Other institutional exhibitions include Musée de l’Homme, Paris (WAX!), Museum Folkwang in Essen, Germany (Grow It, Show It! A Look at Hair from Diane Arbus to TikTok), and Biennale Della Fotografia Feminile 2024 in Mantova, Italy.
Muriu regularly exhibits at contemporary art fairs in the USA, Europe, Asia and Central America. In 2024, she published Camo, her first monograph, and was a recipient of the Global Focus Project Award (Xposure International Festival, Sharjah). Within the same year, she participated in the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center Residency Program, conducting research into the East African kanga for her series Woven Voices.