David Kibuuka
In 1983, David Kibuuka immigrated to Canada to finish his studies at the Ontario College of Art and Design.
Over the past 20 years, David has owned and operated art galleries in Toronto and Los Angeles. His loyal clientele consists of collectors from the business, sports and entertainment communities. As well, David’s humanitarian efforts have supported a world wide fundraising effort by UNICEFfrom the years of 1990-1993. Four of David’s images decorated four greeting cards which were sold world wide to benefit their Children's Foundation. In 2005, collaboration between World Vision Canada, Artistic Canada and David was formed to produce posters using David's images for the purpose of raising money to benefit "Hope initiative" which provides prevention, care and advocacy programs for children and those affected by the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Africa and in 2007 David founded www.lumu.org to directly fundraiser for orphan children in Uganda (East Africa).
His virtual gallery at www.kibuuka.com gives David the time to follow his passion which is teaching Modern Batik Art Technique to youth in the communities’ outreach programs. His workshops have been held in the USA, Canada, Africa, Europe, and in several Caribbean countries (www.modernbatikartworkshops.com).
Wasswa Katongole
David Wasswa Katongole attended Makerere University's Fine Arts Program from the late 1950s into the early 1960s where he encountered and worked alongside his mentor, the late Henry Lumu. After Lumu graduated from Makerere in 1962, and was recruited as Art Director by Uganda National Television, he hired the talented painter Wasswa to serve under him as Associate Art Director where the two worked closely together to bring Uganda's thriving 1960s visual arts scene to a national viewing audience.
Wasswa, as he became known, developed a bold and colorful adaptation of Lumu's fragmentation technique and later transformed his distinctive 'line and color-zone' style from water colors on paper to dyes on canvas. Wasswa is considered an early innovator of East African 'batik painting' originated by Ugandan artists in East Africa after the technically-different wax-resist dying technique arrived from Indonesia during the mid-1950s. The original Indonesian batik dying technique, denegrated as 'craft' by the fine artists of Makerere in the early 1960's, became visually and technically transformed into a legitimate fine art medium, 'water colors on canvas', by Ugandan artists such as Wasswa, who dramatically altered the medium by painting dark to light colors instead of dipping dyes in the order from light to dark. Noted Ugandan artists such as the late Henry Lumu, David Kibuuka, Mugalula Mukiibi, Dan Sekanwagi, Nuwa Nnyanzi, and others, further refined this unique medium until it became virtually indistinguishable in detail and complexity from other fine art mediums such as water colors and acrylics. Wasswa helped the new art form take hold in the Nairobi art scene during the late 1960s through 1980s. Today, Wasswa continues his painting in Uganda using mixed media of pen-and-ink and water colors on paper and canvas.
Wasswa's technique represents a unique blend of precise figure-drawing set against bold, colorful contemporary backgrounds and colored zones. Subjects for this artist's work include traditionally attired dancers such as the Baganda, and nomadic cattle-herders such as the Maasai, as well using his precision as a draftsman to create complex scenes of animals and landscapes characteristic of East Africa.
Mariko Ushido was born in Japan. She began expressing herself with art at age 5, taking up figurative drawing, graduating to painting by age 8. The artist works in pencil, acrylics, and six years ago she has taken instruction of the technique of East African modern batik painting. The unique painterly qualities of this contemporary fine art medium allow this artist the full range of colour, composition, and visual impact normally reserved for oils and acrylics.
Mariko's art work has appeared in exhibitions in Japan, Europe, and Canada. Some of these works were inspired by her visit to Uganda in 2003, where she was deeply impressed with the way local people talked and acted.
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