Shabu Mwangi

Mwangi has been a practising artist since 2003. His practice focuses on the effects of structural and historical violence, and different forms of marginalisation on the individual and collective psyche. Shabu’s paintings are considerations of societal and cultural fissures. His most recent work traces an ongoing personal journey of striving to understand the balance between the two things that drive us, love and pain, and how we react in different ways depending on which of the two is dominant. Shabu’s work has previously dealt with questions of collective suffering, and the effects that inequality, marginalisation, and other forms of structural violence have on communities.

Mwangi has exhibited widely in Kenya and internationally, including Systems of Emptiness at Documenta15 prelude; The Sources of Our Seas at Circle Art Gallery, 2021; East African Encounters in London, 2021; and Self Addressed at Deitch Projects, LA. He participated in Documenta15 in Kassel, 2022; the Mercosul Biennale in Brazil, 2023; and most recently at Africa Basel, 2025.