Stephano Nelsin

Stephano Nelsin (b. 1997) is a self-taught Kenyan painter based in Nairobi. Raised on the Kenyan coast, Nelsin works at the visceral intersection of text, figuration, and heavy abstraction.

His artistic trajectory was profoundly reshaped by an encounter with Kitengela Glass / Nani’s Wonderland, where Nani Croze’s six-decade legacy across glass, architecture, and painting inspired him to pursue art not merely as a discipline, but as a total way of life. His pseudonym pays homage to his niece, Ivana Nelsin (b. 2020)—an early master colorist whose untamed creativity reignited his practice, grounding his work in the restless curiosity of the inner child.

Rooted in the traditions of Neo-Expressionism and Art Brut, Nelsin channels the raw graphic immediacy of Jean-Michel Basquiat and David Choe, the unrefined spontaneity of Jean Dubuffet, and the poetic, improvisational weight seen in the works of Paul Kostabi and Julian Schnabel.

Working with acrylics, spray paint, oil pastels, and heavy impasto, he approaches the canvas through a lens of social archaeology—mirroring Mark Bradford’s tactile layering to dismantle standard representations of reality. His visual language bridges spoken word, semiotics, semantics, and raw human emotion...