Onyis Martin

Onyis Martin: Urban Walls, Social Memory and Contemporary Kenyan Art

Onyis Martin is a Kenyan contemporary artist born in 1987 in Kisumu, Kenya, and based in Nairobi. Working across painting, sculpture and works on paper, he develops a layered mixed-media practice that examines contemporary urban society, migration, displacement, communication, corruption, consumerism and the circulation of information.

His work occupies a distinctive position within contemporary African art, where the city becomes both material and subject. Drawing from posters, public notices, street walls, advertising, handwritten messages and fragments of urban language, Martin creates works that question how information is produced, consumed, controlled and remembered.

View available works by Onyis Martin ›

Talking Walls and the Language of the City

Onyis Martin’s Talking Walls series is central to his recent practice. The works draw from the visual density of contemporary urban walls, where mainstream advertising, informal notices, political traces, personal messages and underground street imagery coexist. These walls are not neutral surfaces. They are public archives of desire, anxiety, survival and social negotiation.

Through torn posters, layered acrylic paint, text, numbers, signs and textured surfaces, Martin examines the instability of language in public space. Words are repeated, broken, covered, erased or transformed. The viewer is invited to ask who writes, who reads, who has access to information, and how meaning changes as it moves through the city.

Migration, Displacement and Social Structures

Martin’s work frequently addresses the human consequences of displacement, migration and social inequality. His investigative approach often begins with personal experience, but expands into broader reflections on human trafficking, movement, institutional corruption, repressive environments and the fragile conditions under which people seek freedom.

Rather than treating these subjects through direct illustration, Martin builds dense visual fields where personal and collective histories overlap. Figures may appear, disappear or remain partially absorbed into the surface. The result is a body of work that asks viewers to consider the social systems that shape visibility, vulnerability and mobility.

Collage, Decollage and Material Memory

Martin’s use of paper, paint, poster fragments and rough surfaces places his work in dialogue with the history of collage and décollage, while remaining rooted in the particular textures of Nairobi and other contemporary cities. His surfaces often resemble weathered walls: layered, wounded, repaired and repeatedly overwritten.

This material language is essential to the meaning of his work. The accumulated surface becomes a metaphor for social memory. What is visible has been shaped by what has been hidden, covered, removed or destroyed. Martin turns the wall into a site of testimony, where public language and private experience collide.

Freedom, Communication and Consumer Culture

One of Martin’s recurring concerns is the relationship between freedom and communication. In a world saturated with advertising, branding, public messaging and digital information, his work asks what kinds of messages are allowed to circulate, whose voices are amplified, and whose remain marginal or unread.

By juxtaposing global brands with local notices, medical services, spiritual offers, political marks and informal urban signs, Martin reveals the contradictions of contemporary consumer culture. His paintings and works on paper become visual investigations into the power, fragility and manipulation of language.

Selected Exhibitions, Residencies and Recognition

Onyis Martin’s recent exhibitions include Talking Walls at OOA Gallery; In the Beginning at African Art Trust Gallery in Nairobi; Sitges Recicl’Art with OOA Gallery; and Visitas inesperadas with OOA Gallery and Fundación Palau Caldes d’Estrac.

His work has also been presented in exhibitions and art fairs including All Men Are Born Equal at OOA Gallery; Africa Rises in Fall with OOA Gallery in London; 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair London with 50 Golborne; Still Here Tomorrow to High Five You Yesterday at Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town; African Metropolis at MAXXI Museum; Cape Town Art Fair; Salon Zürcher in New York; Circle Art Gallery in Nairobi; Eclectica Contemporary in Cape Town; Art-Z Gallery in Paris; and exhibitions in Johannesburg, Addis Ababa, Lagos, London, Barcelona and Medellín.

Martin has participated in residencies and workshops including MATZA Edgelands Residency and Workshop in Medellín, Colombia; The Bag Factory Residency in Johannesburg; Asiko Art School in Addis Ababa; Kuona Trust Artist Residency in Nairobi; Anidan Artist Residency and Art Workshop in Lamu; and the Diálogos Residency and Group Show in Nairobi. In 2017, he received the First Merit Award at the Barclays L’Atelier Competition.

Available Works

Explore a selection of available works by Onyis Martin at OOA Gallery, including mixed-media works, paintings and works on paper that explore urban walls, communication, displacement, memory and contemporary social structures.