Article About Me

Tuesday, 28 September 2010

When MUK’s cleaner turned artist
MARTIN KANYEGIRIRE
It is a lot more encouraging when you meet a cleaner turned to credible artist and has more credibility for his work in European countries than at home.

Mr Mathias Tusiime is a self taught artist who has created a niche for himself. He is the first artist at MUK to make art work from waste products; a unique style he invented.

Due to financial difficulties, Tusiime didn't make it to the university but learning remained one of his dreams. As a young man, he had hopes of having an office of his own, but all this remained unfulfilled. With the qualifications he had attained, his dream job was not coming.

As a growing young man he wanted to be independent and also relieve his mother of the financial difficulties. In 1999, he was employed as a grounds man at the university in the Margaret Trowell School Of industrial and Fine Arts (MTSIFA). This gave him an opportunity to interact with, most important of all, the art materials and waste products.

Tusiime had a limited education background in Art and lack of money to buy his own art materials. Out of curiosity, he crafted a way out to reduce the waste products he was cleaning and dumping. He invented a way of recycling colours and making his own paper using the already used and thrown away materials; sugar cane husks, sisal and grass. That's when the Makerere art school grounds man came into contact with his defined status; celebrity artist.

Tusiime specializes in painting and sculpture. He has got the opportunity to participate in group art exhibitions. In 2006, while at a group art exhibition organized by Nommo gallery in Kampala, Tusiime's work was "definitely inferior". To every ones surprise his piece of painting done on crafted paper and also used as his ground for painting was the first to be sold.

"My very first art piece was bought by a cultural attaché of the Italian Embassy, Mr. Pietro Averono" Tusiime boasts.

Tusiime has without educational training captured the attention of modern medicine practitioners through art therapy. He worked at Wipe the Tears Africa (WITA) as a lead artist for the children therapy sessions. The credibility of his work has proved Tusiime an international artist. He has sold most of his works in Denmark, Netherlands and U.S.A.

Asked why his work has more reverence overseas, he says, "I think my work is so special, that's why I have markets in foreign lands, but you should know that as Africans we do not usually appreciate art."

His rather novice art form still beats the understanding of many trained artists and foreign art collectors.In Feb. 2010, he was invited to Washington D.C to deliver a lecture on the contemporary Ugandan art at the Mbari institute and also at the University of the District of Columbia by Professor Daniel Venne. His luck ran out when he was denied a visa.

In May 2010, the Makerere University art gallery started a solo art exhibition whose basic aim was to showcase art work executed by Mathias Tusiime. Of interest, in the exhibition, Tusiime's art work demonstrated valued themes; environmental concerns and child labour. This was his second solo art exhibition.

Mathias Tusiime's work is worth valuing and has been used by students to do market research. Tusiime is an outsider artist who deserves an academic award.

mnk7@rocketmail.com