Samuel Kakaire

Born 1961 Namalemba, Bugweri, Iganga District - Uganda

Kakaire went to St.Petersburg to study the technique of the oldest painting tradition in Eastern Europe being: Byzantine wall painting. He graduated in 1989 from the Higher College of Industrial Art, St. Petersburg, Rusia with a Master's Degree in fine Arts.

An Ugandan painting icons, several thousand miles away from the birth place of this tradition, is a unique phenomenon. He adapts the Russian visual language to his local Ugandan environment. The subject matter is distinctively Ugandan and the style uniquely Kakaire.

Kakaire paints in tempera, oil, and water colours and can comfortably do both miniature and large-scale mural painting. He uses the traditional, limited palette of colours based on ochre, caput mortuum, black, white, and blue. His work is true to the tradition of iconographic, miniature, and large-scale works. Most of his icons are explorations of a major theme in the picture's centre with smaller interpretations painted around the perimeter. The works are talking about traditional life in the village, king's palace, hunting, and fishing. This is a perfect marriage of the Byzantine and the African cultures.

He regularly exhibits in East Africa as well as internationally.

Exhibitions:

Artworks (Click the pictures to see an enlargement):

  1. "African Kingdom" - Icon / Tempera / Wood  -  65 x 100 cm
  2. "Bow Harp Player under Fruit Tree" - Icon 1994 - 7.1 x 7.5 cm
  3. "Market Scene" - Icon 1994 - 15.5 x 28 cm
  4. "Lady with Kob" - Oil / Canvas - 1993 - 35 x 43 cm

  5.  "Traditional Fishery" - Icon / Tempera / Wood 
  6. "Karamajong Dancers" - Icon 1994 25.5 x 28.5 cm

  7. "Family" - Ink on photo paper 1996 21 x 30 cm
  8. "Evening by the Mayattas" - Icon 1995 20 x 42 cm
  9. "Gossip by the Well" - Icon 1995 20.5 x 42 cm
10. "Karamajong" Tryptichon - Oil / Canvas - 36 x 186 cm (x 3)
11. "Yellow & blue Mask with Statues" - Oil / Canvas -1994 111 x 60 cm