This archive report was first published on 29 June 2019.
Published on June 29, 2019, Dennis Karuri’s story is as much about craft as it is about resistance. The 24-year-old, a professionally trained make-up artist who also models, says his public image has forced people to confront their assumptions about gender identity and sexual orientation.
Karuri describes himself as a man who chose artistry, not a person who chose his identity. He says his make-up work and modelling have become a way of showing that he is not less of a person because of who he is, and that other people like him should feel free to live openly.
He bought his first make-up kit in his third year at JKUAT and took it home to Ruai, where his four sisters were surprised and his father rejected the idea outright. Karuri says his father told him that make-up was not a job for a man.
His entry into the industry began in 2015, when a friend named Sarah started taking him along to client jobs. She also allowed him to use her kit before he could afford his own, and later encouraged him to try modelling. Karuri credits her with helping him get started.
Before make-up became his profession, Karuri was studying agribusiness at JKUAT. He says his first year involved digging the campus shamba and growing a special variety of pumpkins, and that the course later shifted to plant production, processing and marketing. He says those marketing lessons now help him in business.
Karuri also says his relationship with make-up began much earlier, in Form Three, when he would wear what he described as a homemade version of mascara on Saturdays during entertainment. He says he mixed granite powder from a pencil with Vaseline and applied it with a proper mascara wand, and that the other boys did not notice.
He says his mother died in October 2014, when he was in his second year at university, before she could see him model professionally on a runway. That loss, he says, left him without hope for a time, but make-up helped him recover and pushed him toward happiness.
Karuri says his style is deliberately bold, especially around the eyes and cheekbones, though he can also go for a more restrained look. He says clients come to him both for technical skill and for the style he brings to his work.
He says January 1, 2018 marked the first time he posted a full-face make-up photo on Instagram. He describes the post as liberating and says it started a small revolution, while noting that he did not receive negative comments at the time.
Karuri says he wants a Kenya where people are not discriminated against because of identity or appearance. He says that wish is rooted in experience: on one creative project, a photographer allegedly refused to work with him after seeing his portfolio, saying he did not want to be associated with a man who wears make-up. Karuri says he was removed from the project.
He also says he still grieves his mother and recently cried himself to sleep after thinking about her. In that moment, he says, he missed the acceptance she gave him long before he fully understood what was happening around him.
Karuri says readers can find more of his work on Instagram at @_denniskaruri.
