Kato Bukenya
Kato Bukenya Charles was born and raised in Masaka. He started doing art in 2019 while working at Camp Ndegeya, an artists’ retreat center in Masaka. “I was inspired by the hard life that me and my blind twin sister have faced since we were born.”
Kato’s work tells stories of chaos, states of uncertainty, the insidious permanence of pain and trauma. His work is deeply influenced by his childhood. Growing up with his blind twin sister, this affected how he perceives light shape and form. His work almost feels like an attempt to carve images out of dark formlessness. Kato molds amorphous shapes and forms to construct very sublime Roscharchian ink blot compositions.
Kato’s work explores deeply internalized trauma and his work is an outlet for expression while for the person experiencing the work his style is a portal into his psyche which grapples with very complex and deep emotion. Kato plays with material, and he creates his art with found objects, paper, and fabric collages which he finishes with acrylic paint on canvas. Kato displays his work at Masaka Gallery.
Kato Bukenya
Painter, Uganda