Uganda: Painting the Music

Uganda: Painting the Music

New Vision (Kampala)

17 July 2008
Posted to the web 18 July 2008

Stephen Ssenkaaba
Kampala

Art continues to explore new horizons to reach out to the public. The latest attempt in this ongoing struggle is an effort to marry the performing and visual arts.

World musician and producer Richard Kawesa and painter Daudi Karungi have formed music art, a new form of expression that will blend art and music. The Paint the Music project, as this collaboration is called, brings a new way of appreciating art.

"We would like to use painting and music to produce a single artistic language that will be understood by the whole world," says Kawesa.

The project, he says, aims at fundraising for the construction of the first Museum of Modern Art in Uganda and East Africa. The museum will be constructed at the Akright City on Entebbe Road.

The project involves painters working with musicians to produce work based on selected songs. The painters first internalise the message in a song, before producing a painting based on the message.

Through all this, the painters work with the film director and actors to film edit the entire painting process before making a music video out of it. A completed painting will then be sold with a CD copy of the song that inspired it.

The project has been piloted with some impressive results. Three of Uganda's leading painters; Maria Naita, Henry Mzili and Daudi Karungi have painted works based on some of Kawesa's hit songs; Ms Uganda, Train Train, Mam's Speech and Lullaby (Ani Akuba Baby Wange?).

One of the works, a painting by Karungi, was recently presented to Judith Rodin and James Orr, the president and chairman of the board of the Rockefeller Foundation respectively.

Another painting by Karungi, based on Ms Uganda, will be unveiled on Tuesday next week at the Serena Hotel in Kampala.

Celebrated American musician, Vanessa Williams, is expected at the occasion, where the project will be launched to Uganda's top businessmen.