Sane Wadu was born in 1954 in the rural outskirts of Nairobi, Kenya. He was trained as a school teacher and taught for several years at Gichuru High School in Kiambu near Nairobi.

Wadu’s first paintings were experiments slapping household paint onto plastic sheets and on his clothes. He was dubbed ‘insane’ by those around him, so he took the name ‘sane’ in return.

When he submitted his first paintings in 1984 to Gallery Watatu in Nairobi, it was the curator of the gallery – the late Ruth Schaffner – who saw behind these rough and impetuous brush strokes the real talent as an artist. In the 1980s and 1990s he was one of the highly promoted and marketed ‘Watatu artists’.

In his neo-expressive, later more abstract oil paintings he confronts Christianity, Kenyan politics and social injustice.

Beginning of the 1990s he founded together with a group of self-taught artists – Wanju Brush and Chain Muhandi among others – the ‘Ngecha Artists’ Association’.

Currently Sane Wadu lives in Naivasha, Kenya. He regularly conduces art workshops in schools and local community centers.

Wadu has widely exhibited nationally and internationally and his paintings are in private collections around the world.

Untitled | Oil on Canvas | 70cm x 83cm - ca. 1998
CODE: SAWA3

Hallucination | Oil on Canvas | 66cm x 77cm - ca. 1998
CODE: SAWA4

Dictator | Oil on Canvas | 40cm x 35cm - ca. 1998
CODE: SAWA5

Untitled | Oil on Canvas | 38cm x 27cm - ca. 1993
CODE: SAWA2

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