Lot 8

Shine Tani (Kenyan, born 1967)
Transporting Love, 2013
Signed ‘SHINE 13’ (lower middle)
Oil on canvas
79.5 x 122.5 cm
Ksh 320,000 – 420,000
(US$) 3,100 – 4,100
Provenance: direct from the artist

Bought in

As both artist and gallerist, Shine Tani has had an enduring influence on Kenya’s art scene over the last 30 years. Born in 1967 in Ngecha, Shine developed a lasting interest in art as a child, drawing at home with his older brothers. On leaving school, he sought his own ways of survival and for a period performed with an acrobatic group in the village. He explains that, later, a vibrant painting by the Ugandan artist Katongole Wasswa inspired him to pursue art full-time, and by 1988 Shine had developed a career as an artist. He exhibited frequently with Gallery Watatu in the 1990s and has continued to show his work extensively in Kenya and internationally.
Shine was part of Paa Ya Paa and the Ngecha artist’s group, before becoming a founding member of Banana Hill Art Studios and Gallery, which he has been director of since 1992. Beginning as a small artist collective, Banana Hill has become a hugely popular gallery and artistic centre, cultivating the careers and practices of many East African artists.

Transporting Love, 2013 encapsulates the dreamlike quality of Shine’s paintings, where in its extraordinary arrangement of contorted zoomorphic bodies, a lasting influence of his time as an acrobat can be seen.