Original African Paintings from Emerging African Artists

By Sean Cooper

One of the pleasures of writing for this art blog is the opportunity to discover new, emerging artists – as well as to promote affordable art. Of course reproduction paintings are an obvious choice for many home decorators, so it was a pleasure to find a website that promotes and sells original art and paintings from emerging African artists-True African Art.

The site is run by Kenyan born Gathinja Yamokoski. She now lives just outside New York City, but travels regularly to the African continent to source new artists, collect paintings and maintain the relationships that are essential between any gallery and their artists. She’s an African artist in her own right too, and the site features her paintings for sale within its online galleries.

The paintings on offer cover a diverse spectrum of artistic genres. As you’d expect there are plenty of "African" representational landscapes, but there’s also more abstract and expressionist styles evident in some of the pieces.

I particularly liked Elisha Ongere’s paintings – the elongated forms remind me of Modigliani’s paintings – in particular the 1917 Modigliani painting - Woman with Earrings.

True African Art .com recognizes the challenges faced by emerging African artists and operates on Fair Trade principles that ensure loyalty amongst their growing number of artists. It makes commercial sense for the gallery and artists - selling their paintings via True African Art .com means they can look forward to a sustainable long term future.

I have to admit the site dispelled many of my own preconceptions about African paintings, they are both original and decorative – creating a unique and inspirational resource for home owners looking for affordable, original works of African art paintings.