Sanaa Gateja of Uganda started his artistic career as a jeweler trained in Italy. This fact has
had an interesting impact on his innovative paintings. Not only do they glisten with an
illumination of color, but his works are fabricated from start to finish, in many instances,
including the frame. An example of this is Sanaa’s, Secret Meeting which is painted on paper he
made, collaged with bark cloth and framed with a bark cloth backing over the wood superstructure. The blues, yellows and greens in this painting all have a jewel tone quality. In
Sea Festival,
also painted on a piece of handmade paper, Sanaa uses a gentler juxtaposition of pinks and
greens on the sails of the boat - perhaps to portray ethereal spirit entities dancing
rhythmically in the billowing wind. Cross Road, on the other hand, is a bold assembly of
collaged shapes symbolically stitched on to the background.
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