Bwanika Peter: From the wild to your Living Room

At about 6am in the morning, I called Bwanika Peter to remind him of our scheduled inter­view. He had questioned my interest in him since he’s just an upcoming artist and more so, he doesn’t own a gallery or any spacious workshop like the top guns.

I had noticed his work from a friend’s house and I had instantly picked interest in his cre­ations.

He had told me to board a taxi to Entebbe and board off on a certain Transformer stage.

This particular stage is a walk able distance from the famous Kisubi schools (SMACK, SAVIO and the University). After my constant effort to remind the conductor of where he had to leave me, I finally reached. I could see a couple of shops, a salon, a metal workshop, Bwapec Arts and Craft Centre and Moil petrol station in the rear end.

Just like he had told me earlier, I didn’t expect a huge gallery with a receptionist and staff. I expected some­thing simple and I got exactly that. Peter was seated in front of his workshop; it was the only art and craft workshop so I easily sensed it was him and directly walked to his craft shop.

“So, here we are”, he said.

I didn’t get into any questions because I wanted to prove to myself once more that I had made the right decision by choosing to interview him.

The place was small but highly staffed with paintings, some finished and others not, he had some great pieces just that he didn’t have the hype of a huge space, lighting which usually makes such paintings look better in publications.

Peter’s was a simple affair that when I was taking the pictures, we had to set everything up.

On one side of the shop I could see a painting where the charac­ters in it characters in it were making bricks, he later told me the photo depicts the AIDS problem in Africa and how kids forge survival after they lose their par­ents to the disease.

“This is visual art, art is divided into Performing arts and Visual arts”, he said.

He noted that even visual art is divided into Painting, sculpture, fashion and the newly developed artography (photography in art). His creativity is abundant and it comes to the fore in most of his pieces depicting nature.

His work is basically inspired by the wild and the farm; where he’s not using a leopard or goat skin, he’s using a wild log, all terrorized by ant termites. One of his pieces has a real life wild butterfly pinned to it.

Besides the wall hangings, peter also makes living room ware like chairs, tables, lamp holders and other living room adornments.

He says that Ugandans appreciate art much as very few are willing to pay for such items. He says a com­plete living room set goes for about 1.5 million and a bed for as low as ugx 550,000.

Peter says that it’s a wrong conviction that only whites buy art in Uganda.

“Most of my clients are actually Ugandan”, he says.

Peter also notes that the industry is hard at the moment since, for his type of trade, he faces a lot of competition from leather turning industries and button and necklace factories for skins, hides and horns, (which he has also used religiously) alongside legal wars in regards to the wild animal skins.

“You may buy a python or leopard skin only to be ambushed by the police for alleged poaching”, he says.

Peter’s work is a true representation of what African nature can offer to visual art, some of his art pieces are merely spiced by red sand rather than oil paint, his wood and African stone carvings are just a true manifestation that in Uganda, art may as well be our way of life.

Before I could finish the interview a friend of his walked in to ask if he was going to attend some art workshop at Buganda Road. This is when I asked him if he’s ever exhibited, he says he doesn’t go for exhibitions because all the costs involved are high yet they don’t yield a lot.

“It’s not logical to spend a lot on transport, the risks of break­ing some craft, paying for a spot to exhibit when it won’t yield a thing”, says peter of exhibitions.