Joseph Ntensibe

Joseph Ntensibe (b. 1953, Uganda) has dedicated his life to addressing the diminishing forests of his youth. The Uganda of his childhood has changed dramatically due to rampant deforestation caused by mining, war, drought, urbanization, and a lack of awareness about the value of forests. In the past twenty years, Uganda has lost over 1 million hectares of virgin forest cover—almost 30% of the country’s total land.

Although Ntensibe is a highly collectible artist, his large-scale canvases are rare in the contemporary art market. The opportunity to collaborate with and showcase his extraordinary piece from the celebrated 'Disappearing Forest' series is a great privilege. Ntsensibe's dreamlike forest scenes shimmer with hidden sources of light, creating multicoloured sensory feasts. His work has been likened to that of Cezanne and Klimt for its luminosity, but many believe this artist-activist's work stands in a league of its own. The ever-changing landscapes in the series serve as a profound and poignant timeline of Uganda’s loss. In recent years, critics have noted how glimpses of sky and shafts of light, previously unheard of in true equatorial rain-forests, have appeared in Ntensibe’s forestscapes. While undeniably beautiful, these depictions evoke a sense of witnessing a living tragedy.