Joe Bukenya
Born in 1996 in Masaka Uganda, I graduated as a primary school teacher from Kyambogo University. But due to my irresistible talent and passion for art, I gave up my teaching career to explore art as a lifestyle and profession. I wanted to change my personal life through self-expression, and document my community’s rich culture, and traditions plus its diversity. Thereafter, I started painting and selling portraits to tourists in Masaka and Entebbe. I wanted to use my art and talent as a way of imagining life in another dimension, expressing my concern on social, political, and economical issues in my community, and be recognized as a contemporary visual artist, I met Ugandan established mixed media artist Collin Sekajugo who mentored me and I started conceptualizing my artwork and experimenting with different materials like paper cartons, newsprints, fabric, backcloth, ink, and acrylic paint to enhance the visual language in my paintings and style. During this period I was able to discover my unique style of drawing fused with painting. And it is inspired by circuit board patterns. My medium is acrylic on canvas and mixed media on canvas. I’ve been able to exhibit at Zee arts gallery Dubai 2021 “Africa speaks 54”, One-off contemporary art gallery Nairobi 2020 “covid 19 social distancing”, Afriart gallery Kampala 2019 “gender identity rebellion” The village gallery ndegeya Masaka 2018 “life in the brush”. My work is inspired by the way how people live, behave, communicate, and how they connect with their immediate surroundings.
My artwork investigates technology and its impacts on people in Uganda and the world at large.
Am trying to express the liveness of cross-culture and globalization, the dynamism and diversity resulting from the unpredictable intertwinement of cultures and trends as they’re influenced by technology. Through my media; collage, painting ( acrylic on canvas), and mixed media, I employ materials such as paper cartons, aluminium foil, newsprint, and fabric. These enhance my visual language when am exploring the relationship between the black body, technology, and environments. I fuse figures with circuitry running over their skins a metaphor that the black body exists in a state of flux with technology. it is at once a tool and user of systems.
