Dickens Otieno | |
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Born | 1979 |
Education | Technical University of Kenya |
Known for | Visual Art / Textiles / Sculpture |
Dickens Otieno is a Kenyan artist who is known for his large-scale woven metal sculptures and was featured in the 2022 Kenyan Pavilion of the Venice Biennale.
Dickens Otieno is from Migori County, Western Kenya.[1] [2] His mother was a tailor[3] and father was a teacher for deaf children. Though he had a degree in engineering, Otieno was unable to find work, which left him hanging around the streets of Nairobi where he discovered the work of street artists Otieno Kota and Otieno Gomba.[4] Dickens Otieno went on to work with the pair from 2003-2009 doing street art and painting prior to bridging out on his own.[4] Coming from a village, and with scarce resources for art materials, he began experimenting with waste materials.[5] He originally started making sculptures with bottle caps like El Anatsui before moving onto his signature style of weaving tin cans into a metal armature.[4][1]