At the Nairobi Gallery, Leah Warii’s solo exhibition, In the In Between, gathers works she once hesitated to show publicly.
The exhibition opened on October 10 and runs until November 29.
It features paintings created between 2024 and 2025, spanning a range of styles and subjects, from birds and animals to portraits and abstract paintings.
It’s a body of work that isn’t confined to one theme. Warii explains that what binds the works all together is self-expression.
“It’s about getting myself out there regardless of what I feel about the work. I may think that a painting isn’t perfect, but it’s for others to see,” she says.
While much of her earlier work followed structured themes, In the In Between is an experimentation and personal growth. All of them are a continuation, she adds; it’s a progressive growth because there are pieces she can’t do the same.
Her creative process for this show began with a focus on birds, particularly African birds found both in the city and the countryside. The birds were her main focus, but they were a challenge because she had never painted them before.
Equally striking are her fabric-on-canvas pieces, which celebrate African textiles in contemporary fine art.
“I feel like we haven’t celebrated African fabric enough in visual arts. It was something new for me, but I take challenges head-on, as I never want to be limited by style,” she says.
The exhibition gave her freedom and reminded her that artists should express themselves regardless and reveal bits and pieces of herself that she usually hides.
Through In the In Between, Warii has come to embrace her own complexity and push thematic boundaries as an artist.
The exhibition title also reveals what happens between different aspects of her life, career, self and motherhood– the in-between spaces of her life.
“I’ve learnt that I’m more complex with ideas than I thought. I used to think I was very structured, but I’ve realised there’s a kind of structure even in the chaos,” she says.
Free and open to the public, the exhibition at Nairobi Gallery majorly attracts tourists for the virtue of being a museum, and this is also what prompted her to paint animals, as they are popular with tourists.