At 87, Liz Campbell has gone full circle. She has outlived three of her husbands, seen the gains made by the first civil rights movement in the US by her first husband and his friends watered down by an intolerant regime, picked back up her maiden name.
But what has remained undisturbed in all the years of her life is that her paint brush is still unsettled. She remains unbowed, beautiful and spotting the most radiant shoal of grey hair you will ever see as she sits in Ngara Gallery at Heltz House in Nairobi where her show called Where Trees Dance currently is being held at.
The show pays homage to the last three years of her life where she has been living in Kenya with her son Salim, a Capoeira instructor in Kibera.
Her colourful works are a lifelong conversation not only with landscapes but also with nature itself, the stillness and the movements of trees and until recently, the shared rhythms between the elegance of swaying trees and human motion.
Self-discovery
At 87, her show is far from what would be considered the conclusion of a master’s journey.
On the contrary, it opens up a new portal of self-discovery where an octogenarian artist dabbles with new subjects and materials garnered from her three-year stay.
“I came here because my son and his family lived in Nairobi and it was a good time to leave America for all the right reasons. My friends tell me that I am so brave to have made the move and I tell them that I needed to see my son and I have visited Kenya long enough to know that I could live out my life here,” she says.
Apart from Geraldine Roberts and Theresa Musoke, Liz remains to be the only other octogenarian artist still in the practice. Her brilliant use of mixed media to etch dazzling colours on paper capturing the grace and rhythm of colour and movement of humans and trees suggests that her artistic journey is nowhere near a close. I enquire on what keeps her going.
Drawing of purple African lily (2) Pastel on Paper artwork by Liz Campbell pictured on June 24, 2026 at Heltz House in Nairobi.
Photo credit: Bob Ogada | Nation Media Group
“Ego,” she says.
Her painting journey started when she was seven years old. It was a journey grounded in her connection with her father who was a famous illustrator but Liz wanted a different path rom her father. She wanted to be her own person, different from his famous umbrella.
“If you remember Esquire Magazine, they had a logo of a man with big eyes, that was my father’s illustration, he was a contributor for Esquire, we would draw together but I didn’t want to be under his tutelage. If he said let us draw that tree, I would pick my own tree. His influence is in me but from me there is perhaps competition because I wanted to be my own self,” she says.
She adds,“The worst thing parents can do to their children is to give them colouring books because there are lines and designs and children are taught not to colour beyond lines. All those are restrictions, let a child have a piece of paper and crayons and let them paint freely,”she says.
Key lessons
Her eight decades of practicing art across different jurisdictions have come with key lessons.
“You should not criticise your work; you should let it be. It is okay to have favourites and love others less. I had an artist friend who would tear down things when she was unhappy with them but I think I want to learn from my mistakes, from what I don’t like, and improve but if I tear things up, there is no history to learn from. I keep a lot of my work because there are days when I sit down and have a look at them just to learn,” she says.
Reflecting on her artistic path, her life is not one without regrets on the nature of the course she took and the decisions she made and given the chance, there are things she would do differently.
Tree pathway-arboretum watercolour and graphite on canvas paper artwork by Liz Campbell pictured on June 24, 2026 at Heltz House in Nairobi.
Photo credit: Bob Ogada | Nation Media Group
“I was always procrastinating. I started becoming serious with what I express probably in my 50’s. My work and my thoughts shifted during this time and I became more serious because I started curating works that I was happy with. Art for me is food for the soul,” she says.
She adds,“I have been married three times, all my husbands were journalists. I look back at my paintings 25 years ago when I was using my husband’s name and I would tell myself that that wasn’t my name, I had to revert to my maiden name because of having been married three times. I wake up in the morning every day and I always ask myself how did I get to be 87, how did time just shoot by? Now I am my most serious self when I am drawing and painting.”
Her show includes an installation that is composed of her sketches, one a sketch of famous jazz saxophonist John Coltrane which she drew while attending one of his concerts. Jazz for her has been a major influence whenever she is making her compositions and where she goes, a sketch book is always at hand.
“I used to always take a sketchpad with me to concerts. In Kenya I always attend the concerts at Geco Restaurant with a sketchpad because you don’t have to see music to draw it, you just have to hear it. I prefer raw sketching as opposed to using photographs because it is how I communicate with my subjects,” she says.
On what she would change about her life if she had to, she is quick to respond.
“I probably shouldn’t have imposed my style on my friendships on my marriages, I should have let them just develop naturally,” she adds, “I should have accepted my failures with humor,” she says chuckling.
Being in Nairobi
For Liz, the best part about being in Nairobi is being surrounded by people of all colour especially sepia, brown and black.
“Being honoured and respected as an elder is also a beautiful thing. In America, it does happen but mostly within the black community. I lived for about six years in Switzerland and I couldn’t wait to get back to America to be with my own people. Not only is Nairobi my home it feels like the kind of place I want to be in,” she says.
On what she considers as the highlight of her life, she responds.
Pink poinsettias watercolour on Paper artwork by Liz Campbell pictured on June 24, 2026 at Heltz House in Nairobi.
Photo credit: Bob Ogada | Nation Media Group
“When I was in Oakland, California 17 years ago helping the midwife bring my granddaughter into the world. It wasn’t just the experience of seeing her in the crib but physically hearing her mother’s pain and experiencing life at its most vulnerable is a memory that is very clear and it brings me a lot of joy.”
Her life has not been without its fair share of lows but it is human intolerance to people of other races that despairs her spirit. It is this vice that necessitated her migration from America to Kenya.
“Peoples intolerance makes me sad. My father had many friends in the civil rights movement but all that extraordinary work and suffering they did to be trampled and marched on by what America is experiencing currently makes me sad for my grandchildren because I say, what kind of world I’m I giving them where there is so much hatred and disruption?”
