Alern Butama was born in Bungoma, Kenya in 1959. Butama is a documented artist in the Library of the National Museum of African Art in Washington, D.C.; and since 1993, has been Principal at the Buru Buru Institute of Fine Arts in Nairobi, Kenya.

 

He has exhibited in several international exhibitions including London, Rome, Chile, and the United States of America. In the words of the artist, "We were not put into this world to take life as it comes, but to live it according to our talents, by the exercise of which life becomes meaningful."