Githinji Mbire’s up close and personal, confrontational style is at first off putting in Last Exit to Africa. When explaining this large canvas, however, Mbire who harks from Kenya and lives in California, told a poignant story of how there are so many freeways in this country with exits going everywhere except Africa. He hoped that one of these days he would find that exit to his homeland and that he would be able to jump on that plane and fly home. This canvas is of him narrowly making that flight. In Self Portrait Mbire uses bold strokes of color to accentuate the rather distorted face and question identity as well as beauty. Like several artists of the 90’s such as Basquiat and Keith Haring shock value is used to jar the audience into taking a stand on the art.