“Materials have a way of speaking,” says Kenyan artist Maggie Otieno from the Maggie Otieno Nairobi studio, “Sometimes I just sit with them and ask, ‘What is it that you want me to do?’” So for nearly 30 years, Otieno has built a practice around listening, mainly to distressed wood, rusted metal and reclaimed industrial fragments. Her sculptures are made up of a combination of the three, assembled from salvaged pieces gathered across Nairobi.
At the centre of Otieno’s work are 150-year-old sleepers – weathered timbers originally used in the construction of railway lines between India and East Africa – which she reshapes into monumental figures. Her interest in these beams sparked in 2017, when a collector invited her to view a yard stacked entirely with reclaimed sleepers imported to Kenya following railway refurbishments in India. “I was just looking at them and seeing sculptures come out,” she recalls.
Scarred by decades of relentless use, to the artist, the sleepers also embodied histories of colonialism, migration and labour between India, Britain and East Africa. “I kept thinking about what they had gone through over 200 years, with steel trucks running over them,” says Otieno. “It's like I was feeling the pain and resilience of the wood as well as its history.” Otieno became fascinated by the narratives embedded within the timbers, particularly the construction of the Kenya-Uganda railway and the tensions it caused problems with local communities. “I want to tell those stories through giving these pieces characters,” she says. Indeed, the elongated wooden forms, topped with expressive metal heads, are almost human-like, and the surfaces are marked like ruptured skin.
This September, Otieno will hold her first solo exhibition, Sojourner: The Difference Is the Same, with Dubai-based Efie Gallery. It will showcase some of her most recent works, including sculptures created during a residency last year at artist El Anatsui’s studio in Tema, Ghana, which are largely inspired by abandoned fishing boats. Most pieces, however, are brought to life in Otieno’s own studio, a single-floor space located in a leafy suburb on the outskirts of Nairobi, which she designed and built from scratch. Built with vivid lime-green and yellow corrugated metal, it is a space that makes a statement. “They are colours that just make me happy,” she says. “It is also a place that can refresh my creativity and my soul.”
Surrounded by trees, with monkeys often hopping across the branches, it feels like a tranquil world away from the intensity of the city. Inside, towering sculptures stand beside piles of reclaimed wood, discoloured brake discs, old spanners and salvaged steel, all awaiting transformation.“There are days when I come just to look,” says Otieno. “I move the materials around, stare at them and then go home.” While assistants occasionally help with the fabrication, she prefers to work alone. “The energy is so different when someone is around. I feel I’m not able to do the things I want freely,” she says. The injuries sustained through making, especially when using power tools, are also part of the process, she adds. “I see them as battle scars, and I’ve reconciled myself to the fact that scarring can sometimes happen.”
Otieno began as a painter in the late 1990s before being introduced to sculpture almost by accident at an artists’ workshop. Ironically, she was initially intimidated by welding tools and metal grinders, and slowly taught herself to create across materials, eventually developing the hybrid look that defines her work today.
While Otieno’s art travels internationally (she is currently featured in a group exhibition, Resonance, at the Venice Biennale), she remains firmly anchored to the meditative rhythms of her studio. “For me, it's like an altar. Every time I bring in all these materials, I put them on the floor and just observe them. It’s almost like a ritual. Then the materials are renewed and rejuvenated.” Sojourner: The Difference Is The Same will be on show at Efie Gallery from September to October 2026. maggieotieno.com
