A look at Grace Murema’s Instagram reveals the profile of your not-so-traditional make up artist. Her page features images of a wide range of projects that she has worked on from Halloween facial make up to gory and real looking cuts, burns and bruises.
Her journey into the special effects make up industry began in 2005 when she joined Pivot Point to study hair and beauty. Unlike her counterparts, traditional beauty styling didn’t appeal to her so she dropped the manicure and facials that were part of her curriculum to focus on studying make-up. Her decision would eventually lead her to Johannesburg to major in special effects make-up.
The special effects industry is still young in Kenya. It’s infancy, despite allowing room for growth and improvements, can also be hinderance to those already in it. This is something which Grace can attest to as she explained how unavailability of special effects products and poor pay from movies and shows producers who are her main clients, are some of her biggest hurdles.
“Product availability is among one of the many challenges I face. I personally always have to ship in my products from either South Africa or the US. There are no special effects (sfx) products available locally that’s why you find the sfx artists in Kenya using tomato sauce for blood. Lol (sic). It’s sad really.
My line of work has also not yet been accepted in Kenya because to be honest we have some really mediocre sfx artists in Kenya. The work is not good at all so people don’t take this sfx industry seriously. So in terms of payments it becomes frustrating and challenging since producers and directors expect a good job done but don’t want to pay for it.”
Here is some of her work;
https://www.instagram.com/p/9a50wmjuVH/
Her future plans? To continue honing her craft and to open a special effects academy as none exist locally. Her advice to those who want to follow in her footsteps, ” Be patient. It definitely hasn’t been easy for me but I’ve been patient through it all. And most importantly love what you do. It really is a fun career.”