Katanu Kay Merges African Prints With Her Paintings & It’s Just Too Beautiful

Katanu Kay is the 19-year old Kenyan artist who flooded social media with her paintings a month ago and everyone who saw them rightfully praised her unique style that incorporated the African cotton fabric, Kitenge, into her art.

On Her Driving Force

“I often do portraits of people of colour because it’s something I don’t see around often. My use of kitenge fabrics in my work first started when I was doing an art assignment for my class work.

We were given the scenario: A lodge in masaai mara would like you, the artist, to design wall hangings for the lobby. So, I thought to myself, ‘lions are animals often associated with african culture and so are kitenge fabrics.’

I then merged the two and saw that it was amazing – and everyone seemed to like the idea. Afterwards I moved on to mixing kitenge with other paintings.”