Charlene Komuntale is a full-time digital artist and illustrator based in Uganda. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in animation from Limkokwing University, Malaysia. Afriart Gallery, located in Uganda, represents her.

Charlene has participated in the Silhouette Projects Residency Program from March to June 2021 and was a recipient of the Sanaa 2023 LK artist residency at The Mill in Adelaide, Australia. She has exhibited at African Galleries Now X Artsy, FNB Art Joburg, 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair London, Investec Cape Town Art Fair, and Abu Dhabi Art.

Charlene’s work boldly portrays women in stylish fashion while debunking gender stereotypes. In our dialogue, we get to see the inspiration behind covering women’s faces, mainly for her ongoing series "Not Fragile".  

Ozioma Ihesiene is a Storyteller in the disciplines of writing, acting, and director, based in London. Her writing is emotion-driven and comical, engaging readers with varied life

experiences. She has participated in several competitions and residencies. She was chosen as a finalist for the DYSPLA Storymakers Residency Project, which supports neurodivergent

creatives. Ozioma discusses how living with dyslexia has enriched her storylines, how she balances difficult truths with humour in her comedy writing, and how producing work for the 5Lenses exhibition has influenced her to pick up her unfinished writing projects.

Victoria Thuo, popularly known as Blaine, is a painter and graffiti artist based in Nairobi. In this interview with Blaine, she tells us how watching a TV show ignited her love for art at a young age and her evolution from sketching to exploring cubism, expressionism, and impressionism styles in her paintings, with a twist of African-inspired shapes.

Lynn Atieno is a digital illustrator based in Nairobi. Her early years were immersed in pencil drawing and progressed to graphic design and, later, digital illustration. Lynn’s exploration of surrealism and mythology conceals her lived experiences to allow the audience to connect with her work in their own way.

She discusses how she makes a living by practicing digital art, a relatively new art form in Kenya's art scene

Elnah Akware is a visual artist based in Nairobi who works with sculptures and woodcut prints. Her work is decorated with minimal elements of patterns and colour. Elnah expresses how she got into her art career, her major artistic influences, and how art has impacted her personal growth.

Adikinyi Kondo is a multifaceted artist. As a self-taught digital photographer, writer, graphic designer, and music producer, Adikinyi is interested in exploring her lived experiences to connect with her audience. Backed with a sociology degree from the Catholic University of Eastern Africa, Adikinyi leafs through books and research papers as source materials for her photography. She recently finished a music production course with Santuri Electronic Music Academy (SEMA).

In our interview, she goes into detail about her journey into digital photography and her creative process.

Akinyi, who prefers to go only by her middle name, is a multi-disciplinary artist. She has immersed herself in sculpting, fashion styling, and jewelry designing. She combines elements of both sculpture and fashion to express her thoughts on feminism.

We see in our conversation how Akinyi has kept art alive throughout her life, even as a young law student and eventually deciding to quit to pursue art professionally.

Alice Kayibanda is a self-taught conceptual photographer from Rwanda, exploring themes centered on her womanhood in black-and-white images. In our chat, Alice talks about how the depressive season in her life kicked off her artistic career. She opens up about her battle with self-doubt and how she pushes herself to create in spite of it.

Sheila Nakitende is a multidisciplinary artist and a mother from Uganda. She participated in the Kampala Art Biennale and the Kampala Art Auction in 2016. She is a recipient of the Parent residency grant from Women’s Studio Workshop New York USA in 2017 and has internationally exhibited her work in East Africa, South Africa, Europe and USA.