Dennis Muraguri is a Nairobi-based multidisciplinary artist whose practice spans the mediums of printmaking, sculpture, video, and installation in varying combinations. Muraguri has been gaining recognition for his imagery of matatus – privately owned vans and mini-buses that are the main mode of public transportation in Kenya - and the culture that has developed around them in his work.
Muraguri's woodcut prints reference both Nairobi’s urban culture and international popular culture using graffiti, music, and politics depicted on these real-life matatus. Muraguri received a Diploma in Painting and Art History from the Buruburu Institute of Fine Art (2003) and has been a resident artist at the Kuona Artists’ Collective (formerly the Kuona Trust Art Centre) since 2007.
He has exhibited extensively in Nairobi, including a solo exhibition at Circle Art Gallery, 2016, Jua Kali, 2014, a collaborative installation with Tahir Karmali and Tonney Mugo which went on to be included in Making Africa: A Continent of Contemporary Design at the Vitra Design Museum. He has participated in international art fairs such as 1:54 Contemporary Art Fair, London, 2016, and the Jo’burg Art Fair, 2016. Muraguri was also one of the participating artists in the 2014 edition of the KLA Public Art Festival, in Kampala, in Uganda, the ongoing Koch-Muziris Biennale2018 in India and will be the artist in residence at Espaço Luanda Arte, in Luanda, Angola in 2019.
