John Baptist Sekubulwa

Makerere Art School graduate John Baptist Sekubulwa has been a practicing painter for seven years now. He started out as a wildlife painter, but for the past four years he has focused on developing a symbolic visual lexicon. From his Kampala studio he sends out paintings that debate global-scale sociopolitical injustices and unearth connections to the colonial past. His imagery denounces the contemporary economic sanctions imposed by the West to manipulate politics and societies in countries like Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, and Burundi, connecting these punishments to persecutions of journalists critical of the unjust structure of the political economy during the Cold War. His work marvels at the irony of political dissidents seeking protection in the same nations that were pulling the strings behind the scenes