Joseph Ntensibe
Ugandan artist Joseph Ntensibe has made it his life’s work to lean into his very real concerns about the diminishing forests of his youth. Born in 1953, the Uganda of his childhood has changed beyond measure thanks to rampant deforestation due to mining, war, drought, urbanisation, and ignorance regarding the value of what was once one of Uganda’s most prolific resources. In the past twenty years alone, the equatorial East African country has lost over 1 million hectares of virgin forest cover – almost 30% of the country’s total land.
While he is a highly collectible artist, it is not easy to procure Ntensibe’s large-scale canvasses and they are regarded as rarities in the contemporary art market. Consequently, an opportunity to collaborate with and showcase this extraordinary piece, from the much-celebrated ‘Disappearing Forest’ series, is a great privilege for the Christopher Moller Gallery.
Ntensibe’s dreamlike forest scenes glimmer and shimmer with hidden sources of light; they are multicoloured sensory feasts that have been likened to Cezanne and Klimt for their luminosity, but like other devotees, we believe this artist-activist’s work is in a league of its own. The ever-changing landscape of the series is profound and a devastatingly poignant timeline of Uganda’s loss. In recent years, critics have noted how for the first time, glimpses of sky (unheard of in true equatorial rain forests) and many more shafts of light have crept into Ntensibe’s forests-capes; while there is no denying how beautiful the depiction, it is laced with a sense that we are bearing witness to a living tragedy.
COUNTRY • UGANDA
MEDIUM • OIL ON CANVAS
FIRST EXHIBITION WITH CHRISTOPHER MOLLER GALLERY • 2023
Explore his Work
Previous exhibitions by JOSEPH NTENSIBE
2023
INVESTEC CAPE TOWN ART FAIR, Christopher Moller Gallery, Cape Town.
2016
Glocal Art Gallery, Denmark. (April)
2013
Glocal art gallery-Denmark. (May)
2011
Bad Zwischenahn, Germany. (July) Kabira Country Club, Kampala – Uganda. (September)
2010
Signature Art Exhibition, Serena hotel, Uganda. (November)
2007
Joint exhibitions internationally and Uganda.
2006
Sankaranka Gallery, New York - USA.
2000
Deventer - Holland.
1998
Uganda Germany Cultural Society, Uganda.
1997
Freyung- Germany. (January) Ulm – Germany. (November)
1995
Ulm Germany.
1994
The Gallery Café, Kampala - Uganda.
1993
Uganda museum. (March) Italian embassy Uganda (December)
1991
Ulm – Germany. (January) Berlin – Germany. (August)
1987
Flensburg - Germany.
1984
Nairobi – Kenya.
1980
Amsterdam - Holland.