Nairobi artist Sharon Akinyi decorates cow skulls with beads and mirror glass, selling them for KSh 35,000 to 120,000

Sharon Akinyi, 31, studied architecture before moving into interior design and decoration. Since 2023 she has been turning cow skulls from slaughterhouses into decorative art, and the pieces now sell for between KSh 35,000 and KSh 120,000, Business Daily reported on 15 October 2026.

Akinyi runs the business as Skulls Kenya from a studio at Muthaiga Heights in Nairobi. In Business Daily's account, skulls hang on the studio wall with their horns curving outward, some dressed in beadwork and mirror glass.

People look at a skull and think of death, she said. “But for me, it is about transformation.”

The change began while she was freelancing in interior design, work that took her out to meet new people after days spent at a computer. She noticed skulls lying by the road and wondered what they could become. She bought more skulls, tried new designs and opened an Instagram page, which has since become her main channel for sales.

The raw material comes from slaughterhouses. She said she walked into one and told the workers to save the skulls with good horns for her. Some skulls travel from Uganda, home to the Ankole cow, known for horns far larger than anything found locally.

Cleaning takes a month and a half. A skull is disinfected, boiled and dried in the sun for weeks, then sanded and primed. “No animals are killed for my art,” she said. She is at the studio from about 10am to 4pm, mostly on weekdays, she said.

Several pieces have names. The “mirror mosaic” is one of her earliest designs. Glass work needs care in cutting, gluing and curing, she said, and she priced one glass mosaic piece at KSh 65,000. Another skull is wrapped in flowers with a butterfly among them. “A skull is seen as morbid, but I wanted to soften it and create a garden,” she said. Of one piece called “Empress”, she said: “She looks like a queen.” A pair called the “warriors” is one white skull and one copper. The largest pieces take a month or more to finish.

She takes colour ideas from beadwork made by artisans at Maasai Market. “The women from Maasai Market are so talented,” she said.

Buyers include art collectors, nyama choma (grilled-meat) restaurants and safari lodges in the Maasai Mara and Amboseli. Luxury lodges often buy in bulk. Akinyi said it is illegal to have wild animal skulls, so the lodges cannot hang them and order cow skulls instead. “They specify the size, the shape and the detail,” she said. Buyers in London, Canada and the US find her through Instagram.

One order from Ghana never went through. “The price of the skull was Sh35,000. The shipping was Sh90,000. The client was not going to pay that,” she said.

Akinyi still works as an interior designer alongside the skulls. She called the pace demanding because she wants to grow and scale. She believes she is the only person doing this work in East Africa, and copycats no longer bother her. “Creativity can’t really be copied. There are enough skulls for everyone,” she said.

Her aim is to move up the market. “I want to create luxury collectible pieces that can be used in high end hotels in London and Dubai,” she said.