Source: All Africa
With a widening market for fine art, the fine artists have had to pull up their socks to satisfy a more art-discerning public.
The nude or half nude women bodies are becoming the collector's item. Eric Rwakoma, a fine artist in metal works and sculpture, has for the last few years concentrated more on photography.
But at the same time, it was gutsy coming from him. He noted during the first Fireworks Advertising agency art exhibition in 2009 that he felt inspired by the female body and many people wanted such pictures.
He reasoned that it was important for people to love their bodies and not be shy to bring out the beauty in them. "That is God given beauty and exhibiting it is good for the human eye," Rwakoma said.
If it was a tough call then, of late, other artists are painting with a similar line of direction as Rwakoma. During the controversial art exhibition in March, Daudi Karungi showcased three mind-blowing art pictures of women, whose bodies he painted with a collage of colours when they were completely nude. He called it avant-garde art. The new and contemporary style of art that has a sense of novelty to it.
George Kyeyune also exhibited at the new Umoja art studio in Kamwokya a set of art paintings of a rural African woman with her breasts on show. Taga Nuwagaba also showcased his half-nude woman at the Fireworks exhibition on June 30.
And no hiding the fact that women fascinate men more than the other way round, it seems. But Katalina Kabugo, a female artist said recently after she also painted a picture of a nude woman that it is a matter of painting what is catchy and nice today.
"And of course, the buyers of art want unpredictability." So, femininity sells.