Christy Hannah: The Art of Acquiring Something Truly Rare
- 3 hours ago
- 5 min read
A world-renowned, Nairobi-born, Ottawa-trained fine artist. A 2025 United Nations General Assembly exhibitor. And one of the most compelling voices in contemporary African art today. An exclusive Home Findss editorial.
by: Home Findss Editors
There are artists who make beautiful objects. And there are artists who build worlds. Christy Hannah is decisively the latter.
Born and raised in Nairobi, Kenya, and internationally refined through a transformative residency at the prestigious Ottawa School of Art in Canada, Christy Hannah has emerged as one of the most compelling and collectible voices in contemporary fine art today. Her canvases—rich with vibrant colour, rooted in cultural memory, and alive with a joyful exactitude—occupy that rare territory where investment-grade gravitas meets pure visual delight.
In 2025, Hannah was selected to exhibit at the United Nations General Assembly, cementing her standing on the world stage and making her work not simply art for the home but art for history. For the discerning collector seeking provenance, rarity, and the unmistakable sense that a piece will appreciate as meaningfully on the wall as it does in the world, Christy Hannah is a name to know.
Home Findss sat down with the artist for an exclusive conversation on her creative philosophy, her collecting advice for new patrons, and what it means to create work that speaks across continents.
The Conversation
ORIGINS
On formation, training, and the roots of a singular artistic vision
I was born and raised in Nairobi, Kenya, self-taught, with no formal tertiary training in the fine arts. I did study art in high school, and even before that, I always had an eye for arts, crafts, and fashion. As a child, I designed and sewed dresses for my dolls by hand, sketched full clothing collections, and was among the founders of my school's knitting club. My love for textile art runs deep—you can see it woven into most of my work today.
The pivotal moment came in October 2018, when I received the opportunity to complete an artist residency at the Ottawa School of Art in Ottawa, Canada. That experience was the true catalyst. It transformed my practice from a passionate pursuit into a serious, internationally regarded career.
AESTHETIC IDENTITY
How would you define your artistic style to a new collector?
Playful and precise, simultaneously. My work has a serious, considered underpinning, but the surface is exuberant—I love the tension between realistic, meticulously rendered scenes and colours that feel almost impossibly vivid, even cartoonish in their joy. There's an intentional juxtaposition there that I find very alive.
The style shifts with the theme, but that core tension—the real and the luminous—is always present. I'm drawn to detail. And I'm drawn to colour that refuses to be modest.
My work is not boxed to look like it's from one geographic location. I paint the world, from a Kenyan soul.
— Christy Hannah
INFLUENCE
On travel, faith, music—and how they shape the work
My Christian faith is at the very center of my creative process—from conception to creation to how I present the work to the world. I always invite that presence into what I'm doing.
Beyond that, I travel constantly and listen to music almost perpetually as I paint. Both have fundamentally expanded my visual language. Because of this, my work refuses geographic limitation—it carries Nairobi within it, but it breathes in Ottawa and wherever the music takes me. Listening to music while I work has shaped my brushstrokes in ways I couldn't have planned: looser passages where the rhythm loosens and more precise work where the composition demands it.
MEDUIM & METHOD
Why collectors should understand the intentionality behind each medium choice
I refuse to limit myself to a single medium, and I think that's an important distinction for collectors to understand. Each medium choice is a deliberate decision about the nature of the work itself. When I want precision and depth of detail, I work in acrylics. When I want something looser, impressionistic, with that quality of a remembered scene rather than a documented one, I reach for oil pastels.
The medium isn't incidental—it's part of the meaning. That intentionality is something I believe gives each work its integrity and, ultimately, its lasting value.
CREATIVE LINEAGE
The artistic influences that have shaped her technique
Monet's dreamy, pastel-saturated atmospheres. Erin Hanson's gorgeous impressionistic landscapes feel charged with feeling. And for precision and technical rigour in contemporary practice, Andrew Tischler, whose approach to realistic work via his YouTube channel has been a genuine and transformative resource for me.
What connects them all is colour that feels elevated beyond the merely descriptive. Art that makes the viewer feel something before they can explain why.
THE COLLECTOR'S PERSPECTIVE
Why Serious Collectors Are Acquiring Christy Hannah
01
Institutional Validation
A 2025 United Nations General Assembly exhibition places Hannah among the select few artists whose work has been presented on the world's foremost diplomatic and cultural stage. Institutional provenance of this calibre is among the most enduring markers of long-term collectible value.
02
Cross-Continental Rarity
Hannah's Nairobi-rooted, internationally refined practice occupies a singular position at the intersection of African contemporary art and the Western fine art canon. This geographic duality is increasingly coveted by collectors building portfolios that speak to a global cultural moment.
03
Interior Excellence
Hannah's original works—particularly her large-format acrylics—command walls with the authority of investment-grade fine art while bringing rare warmth and narrative depth to luxury residential and hospitality interiors. They are acquisitions that live magnificently.
PROVENANCE & PRACTICE
A Career Built on Deliberate Excellence
For the collector new to Christy Hannah's work, her biography is as compelling as her canvases. Self-taught in the finest sense—not untrained, but unboxed—Hannah built her artistic practice through genuine intellectual curiosity, international travel, and an unwavering commitment to her own vision rather than market trends.
Her advice to fellow artists speaks directly to the ethos collectors look for: "Make your art a business—see it as an empire you are building that will last for generations." These are not the words of someone making art for a moment. This is work intended to endure.
EARLY CAREER
Born and raised in Nairobi, Kenya. Self-taught from childhood, textile arts, fashion design, and sketching established an early, multidisciplinary visual language.
2018
Artist residency at the Ottawa School of Art, Ottawa, Canada — a transformative period that elevates her practice to professional international standing.
2023
Featured in an exclusive Home Findss editorial, introducing her work to a global audience of design-forward luxury collectors.
2025
Selected to exhibit at the United Nations General Assembly—the pinnacle of institutional recognition for a contemporary artist working today.
A FINAL WORD
If you could leave your fellow artists—and, we'd add, your collectors—with one piece of wisdom, what would it be?
"Don't compare your journey to another artist's. Be yourself at every stage, at every turn. No one is like you — so let that shine. Art is how humans express themselves as individuals. Let's see that in your work. Make your art a business. See it as an empire you are building that will last for generations."
— Christy Hannah
ACQUIRE ORIGINAL WORKS
Own a Christy Hannah Original
A curated selection of Christy Hannah's original paintings and fine art prints is available exclusively through Home Findss. Each acquisition includes full provenance documentation. For private collector inquiries, bespoke commissions, and interior design partnerships, our editorial team is available to assist.
Comments