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The Fek Fek art of Lukwago Saad, canvas using acrylics

Saturday September 23 2017
Lukwago-2309

Chips Funga. PHOTO | FRANK WHALLEY | NMG

By KARI MUTU

When Lukwago Saad was teaching fine art to high school students, they would tease him about his abstract paintings, calling his creations “fake-fake.”

Undaunted, Saad was inspired to develop a unique style of paintings that he calls Fek Fek art.

As a child, Saad wanted to be a cartoonist. There is a playfulness in some of his Fek Fek collage paintings on paper, in muted colours and using newspaper cuttings or scraps from laundry soap packaging.

He uses expressionism to get his message across. One painting has a pair of abstract birds wearing boots and ladies’ heels, surrounded by a patchwork of geometric shapes. It is part of series called Boots and Sneakers, on interactions between men and women.

By depicting bird-like people, he borrows from the indirect way of African storytelling. “It also helps the viewer to spend more time looking at the work and seeing a different version of the story,” Saad said, adding that humans can learn from the tight bonds formed between pairs of birds.

The one-eyed herder dressed in deep blue clothes and guiding a pair of long-horned cattle in an untitled acrylic painting on paper is actually a woman.

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“I wanted to show the woman as leader who has the responsibility of guiding followers,” said Saad, who studied art at Kyambogo University in Kampala.

To avoid monotony, Saad works on canvas using acrylics and knives for another set of paintings, also about relationships. He’s gone for a flat look, with angular outlines and disproportionate body parts. Chips Funga, about multiple partners, is a painting of a green man standing with two women, one yellow and the other green.

Using subdued colours acknowledges the contribution of both the main lady and the mistress in the man’s life, Saad says. “Blue and yellow give you green, the two women complete the guy,” he adds. “But I like to think the same applies to women.”

A painting called The Letter is of a sad-looking woman holding a letter, with a sympathetic bird sitting on her shoulder and her friend consoling her. In this paiting, Saad has used warm oranges and cool blues to highlight the sweet and sour nature of love.

Saad’s art can be viewed at his Fek Fek studio in Kitemu, central Uganda. Some of his work is currently on display at the Karen Country Club in Nairobi.

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