Gems of Intuitiveness

 

Felix Lubega’s small sculptures reveal the artistic ingenuity typical of informally trained artists, while navigating the theme of finding opportunities everywhere and in everything, exemplified by his journey from carpenter to sculptor

ARTS | DOMINIC MUWANGUZI | For a minute or perhaps more, one will be caught staring at the small sculptures hanging on the white walls at the AKA Gallery. They’re sculpted from found objects: discarded wood, rusty door bolts and aluminium plates that sit against a background of barkcloth. These artworks are displayed in a horizontal form suggestive of a common story thread that runs through them. Their theme is environment conservation and sustainability as revealed by the material they are created from. But there’s a delicate message of finding opportunities everywhere and in everything in life that underlies these intuitive works. The artist’s appropriation of the door bolt in his artworks symbolizes the act of opening spaces where these opportunities lie in our everyday life.

The artist, Felix Lubega, a soft-spoken and almost shy middle-aged man with a background in carpentry, will calmly narrate to you the inspiration behind this new body of work that is an extension to his previous works that explored the same concept. “As a carpenter I want to experiment a lot with what whatever I see in my surroundings. This same energy also inspired me to begin to create art because I have a belief that there’re possibilities and opportunities everywhere, but it is up to the individual to step forward to embrace these circumstances,” he says. This conviction has opened doors for him in the visual arts, and today if he’s not in his workshop making furniture, he’s building sculptures from the materials that’re lying idly in his workshop or those he collects from his neighborhood to showcase in art exhibitions. Through this creative process, the artist does not only repurpose the discarded material but also interrogates themes of everyday life, especially what he’s able to see and experience in his community.

There’s a notable aura of freedom and elegance coupled with the artistic ingenuity that runs through these sculptures. The manner in which the artist explores shape, space and line is unusually common and injects a freshness to the art. His emphasis on irregular forms in his artworks is evocative of his humble social background, informal art training in art and a deep connection with his immediate surroundings. The community where these artworks are created from is informal, with many people living ordinary lives that include trading in the markets, riding boda-bodas (mobile motorcycle taxis) and indulging in construction works. As such, these artworks can be described as metaphors of this ordinary life, often symbolizing the knack for survival among this population.

Within the context of the exhibition Identities Memories, these sculptures navigate the theme of identity and memory that preoccupies our lives on a day to day. The question of who we’re socially and culturally is usually best answered by focusing on our life experiences as humans. Lubega, through working with material that carries the identity and memory of their past life, encapsulates this critical aspect of human life. The dead wood, door bolt, barkcloth and aluminum plates transcend their aesthetic function in the sculptures and become representational of who we are and the desire to preserve this identity. In particular, the barkcloth in his work primarily represents the artist’s cultural heritage and the fact that he’s proud of it. Lubega is a Muganda (a citizen of Buganda Kingdom) belonging to the Ngabi (Antelope) clan, one of the fifty-two clans of the kingdom.

Through these intuitive sculptures that break the norm of sculptural works which are often heavy and bulky, the artist is able to trigger our minds to the idea of being open-minded. In spite of his informal exposure to art, he has been successful in creating art that is unusual and can captivate the viewer but also makes it affordable for everyone. This practicality in his work is the real strength that cannot be ignored because it is evidence of his philosophy of finding opportunities in everything in life.

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Felix Lubega’s sculptures can be viewed in the exhibition Identities Memories showing at AKA gallery. Located on plot 44 Bukoto street, Kamwokya next to the Goethe Zentrum Kampala and Alliance Francaise Kampala