From Yahoo! News: Kenyan artist Boniface Maina, dreadlocks peeping out from a woolly hat, strolls round paintings and sculptures going under the hammer in the first commercial auction of east African art.

The auction in Kenya’s capital Nairobi is a sign of the growing profile of the region’s flourishing art scene.

“It’s a great step towards east African art becoming better known,” Maina said, adding he hopes in the future to collect art as well as create it.

Tuesday’s high society auction at an upmarket hotel includes 47 lots from the past three or four decades, with prices expected to range from a few hundred dollars (euros) to almost $30,000 (22,000 euros).

“You have to buy what you love, but also being aware that art is a valuable commodity, and expresses the cultural heritage of the country that it’s made in,” said Danda Jaroljmek, director of the Circle Art Agency, which is organizing the auction.

“We want people to join us in this new journey to discover art.”

Kenyan artists predominate but Ethiopia, Tanzania, Uganda and Sudan are also represented.

“It’s a positive step for the market in east African art, it opens up the art scene,” said Sudanese artist Eltayeb Dawel Beit, most recently working on an installation for the lobby of PricewaterhouseCoopers’ new Nairobi office.

Read more at Yahoo! News.