Michael Magambo

Michael’s father died when Michael was very young and he had to hustle his way through high school. He started drawing portraits and actually succeeded in supporting himself during his three years at high school by making drawings for friends and for his teacher who was young and enthusiastic and who also saw his talent and asked him to take care of the school’s art room. This meant that he got the key to the room where all the materials were kept and in the evening when everything was dark he went there and started painting.

When he left school he hung around the town and did not really do anything. Or to be more specific, what he did do was bad. He got into drugs and when you ask him today he is quite sure that things would have turned out really badly if he had not met a friend who was setting up an art exhibition. The friend invited him to display some paintings and from then on everything went very fast. He entered the local art school and after a few years as a student there he was offered a job as a teacher.

Today he is 31 years old and he lives in Kisumu with his wife and their four children. He is still teaching and actually he has been teaching a number of the young artists in our PostArt Kisumu group.