Yvonne Muinde’s first commissioned artwork was a motorbike mural she painted for her twin brother when she was about 11 years old.
While her brother was outgoing and social, Yvonne preferred to stay home and paint, draw and doodle. She also loved the comic book series Asterix and Obelix, and her bedroom walls were covered with stickers, much to her mother’s dismay.
Yvonne’s love for art was influenced by Spanish artist Salvador Dalí (Dalí’s paintings also evince a fascination for Classical and Renaissance art), and she loved surrealism.
“I found it fascinating that we could mix all these different worlds and things together,” she said.
Today, 51-year-old Yvonne is an internationally acclaimed, award-winning matte painter and visual artist. She has worked on films such as Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, San Andreas (2015), Meg 2: The Trench (2023), and Godzilla x Kong (2024), among her 46 visual effects credits. Most recently, Yvonne and her company, Ikweta Arts, released a trailer for the Road to Shujaa documentary, for which she is the filmmaker.
Yvonne was born and raised in Nairobi, Kenya. She attended Loreto Convent Msongari, and when selecting courses before taking the KCSE exam, she chose art courses for her university studies. Her headmistress at Loreto, Sister Pauline, gave her a prospectus for the Savannah College of Art and Design to study fine art.
“I think Sister Pauline thought, ‘This one actually just wants to paint.’ My parents were very supportive, and I quickly packed a suitcase and left for the US, hoping to become an amazing painter.’
Exploring social narratives has always been important to Yvonne. After completing her studies in 2003, she painted a piece called “Blinded by Greed” and wrote the title in Braille.
Then, she was picked up by the John Pence Gallery, a well-established gallery in San Francisco.
“I was in one of the best galleries in the city,” she said. But as a young artist trying to find her way, I made a lot of mistakes. I felt like the gallery owner was trying to push me into a style of painting I wasn’t interested in. I packed my things and walked out. Then, I moved to another gallery, Bradford Codwell, and finally, to the Thelma Harris Gallery in Oakland, in the Bay Area.
While doing work for galleries, she ended up in a commercial mural studio. They painted a lot of stuff for casinos in Las Vegas. She remembers being tasked with painting a cauliflower for the lunch area of the Harrah’s Las Vegas hotel and casino.
In the Bay Area, there was beautiful public art all over the Mission District, San Francisco’s oldest neighbourhood. Seeing this inspired her to do something more meaningful than painting cherubs.
She started applying for grants. She applied to the Blair Caldwell African American Research Library in Denver, received the grant, and painted a mural themed “Moving West” for the lobby. She was paid enough to buy a plane ticket and fly her father in from Nairobi for the mural’s unveiling.
“My dad is very open-minded. He never saw my art as inferior. It was an extremely proud moment for me to have him see it.’
Her dream of ending up in a museum also came true. A collector purchased two of her pieces and added them to the Philadelphia Museum of Fine Arts’ collection, “The Chemistry of Colour.” However, living in the Bay Area was expensive. Her husband, whom she met 25 years ago, worked at Tippett Studios and was the first to tell her that her skills were transferable to visual effects.
“After three years of asking a lot of questions, I landed at Industrial Light and Magic (ILM), the folks who made Star Wars. I spent my first year there. That’s where I learnt how to teach visual effects and how I believe the skill is transferred.’
Yvonne then moved to Animal Logic, a visual effects company in Australia, for two years, where she worked on Happy Feet. After that, she spent eight years at Weta Digital as the only woman in a “sea of 1,500 people” and head of matte painting.
She then moved to Scanline VFX in Vancouver, Canada, where she worked as head of environments and matte painting for four years. There, she worked on Black Panther (2018), Game of Thrones and Guardians of the Galaxy, among others.
After 28 years abroad, Yvonne returned to Nairobi about seven years ago. Scanline VFX was already working in a remote pipeline, so she requested to relocate to Nairobi.
Though she returned to Nairobi with a three-month contract, it lasted five years after the pandemic normalised remote work. Yvonne and her husband founded Ikweta Arts in Nairobi with the sole aim of telling authentic African stories. The couple has already written a story titled ‘First Universe.’
She picked up new clients along the way while working for DNEG in Australia, and she is currently working on her first Chinese film. During this time,
Now that she has stabilised the company, Yvonne has resumed painting and hopes to display her artwork in galleries again.
Yvonne says the documentary, The Road to Shujaa, is personal to her because she loves sports. A triathlete, she is one of the few Kenyan women to have ever completed a full Ironman, which she did for her 50th birthday in 2024. Another “extremely personal” story that Ikweta Arts is working on is Guardians of the Mountain, a story about Mount Kenya.
Since her return, Yvonne has noted a lack of understanding of what visual effects are, their potential, and what they can bring to the country.
“We need to expand our vision so that we can dream bigger and achieve more. We need to create more learning pathways and pipelines. How many credits run through every time you watch a movie? Those are all jobs; people doing something they love.”
In 2024, Nairobi hosted the first visual effects creative festival, sponsored by Création Africa. Industry leaders came to speak about VFX, including five Academy members (Yvonne among them) and six Visual Effects Society members.
“For me, art is ever-evolving. It’s difficult to pursue what you love when there are so many obstacles along the way. It’s not a smooth journey; you have to be passionate about what you do. You need to pay it forward, and you need to share what you’ve learned. You can’t keep it to yourself. It’s not a sprint; it’s a long, steady run. Pace yourself. But at the end of the day, it’s completely worthwhile.