The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Aloka Trevor’s new body of work navigates the turbulent journey of caring for his mother as she undergoes treatment of cancer while shedding light on finding beauty in brokenness.
ARTS | DOMINIC MUWANGUZI | Naturally, art is supposed to trigger emotions in the viewer’s heart and soul. It is meant to remind us of those experiences we encounter in our everyday life and for us to reflect on them in order to find ourselves and perhaps also that elusive meaning in life. Living a Loving Memory, a solo show by Aloka Trevor, at the Capsule echoes this philosophy in a more dramatic and captivating way that grips the attention of the viewer. The exhibition, a tribute to his mother’s struggles with cancer treatment at Nsambya Hospital, presents visual imagery that stimulates feelings of pain, anxiety and frustration but also resilience as the artist delicately navigates the theme of brokenness that is familiar with the diagnosis and treatment of chronic diseases like cancer.
The artist works with hospital receipts as a recurrent motif in his paintings to construct a visual narrative of the magnitude of this precarious health condition that his mother is experiencing and how much time the family has invested in the process of her treatment. Several of the receipts have dog ears, an obvious testimony to the long period of treatment but also a sign of the continuous need to archive her journey of treatment that often is born out of the patient’s deep silent desire for recovery. “My mother had this huge pile of hospital receipts stashed away in her closet, and she had been collecting them for some time.
One day I approached her and asked if I could use them, and she freely accepted,” Aloka revealed in a brief interview.
The artist’s technique of drawing on the receipts gives them a new identity, not only as artworks but also as traces of the passage of time that underscore the heavy weight of treating and taking care of someone with such a disease. Equally, the prints from his sketchbook capturing random moments in the patients’ wards or reception area at the hospital illustrate the gloom that surrounds both the process of diagnosis and treatment. Several figures captured in the artist’s drawing book appear submerged in loneliness, anxiety and pain as they await what’s next. A scene that depicts boda boda riders parked at a petrol station shielding from the rain that the artist captured one morning when he had to rush back home to pick up some important documents which were required at the hospital reveals much more than men huddled up on their motorcycles who are impatiently waiting for the rain to stop so that they can go back to work. This scene is a powerful metaphor for the act of waiting that often takes a psychological and emotional toll on the individual. Within the context of this body of work, the act of waiting inspires depression and trauma in the fragile life of the patient, making them become anxious about what possibly lies ahead. Similarly, Aloka’s anxiety about the future of his career, inspired by his inability to fully concentrate in his studio to produce work because of the urgency to attend to his sick mother, is tackled here. Incidentally, the idea of moving with a sketchbook as he escorted his mother to hospital was intended to bridge a gap between himself and his studio. With a sketchbook always in his hands, he found he could keep on creating art, albeit with the inconveniences of working in an unusual space like a hospital facility or roadside.
In spite of evoking a sombre mood in his work with scenes of patients at the hospital and the regular depiction of a desolate female figure on the printed receipts, the artist injects a sense of hope in this gloom by exhibiting installations of natural herbs like blackjack and hibiscus alongside the printed artworks. The artist borrows inspiration from the Japanese art and philosophy of Kintsugi that celebrates finding beauty in brokenness. Aloka finds beauty in the process of treating his mother in the form of self-discovery, resilience, patience and gratitude. The flowers interlaced with the drawings on the receipts and those as installations serve as a literal symbol of giving her mother her flowers as she’s still with the family. This bouquet is in appreciation of her love, endurance, perseverance and gratitude; values that can be equated to a mother’s love in spite of her ailing condition.
This autobiographical body of work is a bold visual expression of the personal struggles of the artist and his family as they sacrifice everything possible to save the life of their mother. But beneath this struggle is the beauty of optimism that inspires more than anything else, the artist to muster the courage to share their personal story as a gesture to finding beauty in brokenness.
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The exhibition is showing at the Capsule located at Yujo Restaurant on plot 36 Kyadondo Road, Kampala.
Images are courtesy of Afropocene Studio Lab.
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Aloka Trevor has received this 2025 prestigious L’Atelier Art prize under the theme ‘Celebrating Expression’ emerging the best in the category A.
