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.
Biography
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]