Ugandan artist Peter Oloya has participated in a number of Foundation-sponsored residences and workshops. In 2006 his life-size sculpture of a Crowned Crane, national bird of Uganda, was commissioned by the then British High Commissioner François Gordon. The first cast of this piece was presented to HM Queen Elizabeth II by the people of Uganda on the occasion of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in November 2007 and is now sited in the gardens of Buckingham Palace. The second cast was unveiled in June 2008 outside the British High Commission in Kampala to great acclaim.
In 2018 we invited Peter to a residency focussed on making large works for the Foundation’s burgeoning Sculpture Park. A life-size male gorilla was his subject of choice, celebrating a Silverback in full posturing display. At the same time, this sculpture stands in acknowledgement of the very location of the Foundation as a landmark site on the route to and from the Bwindi National Park, home to the single largest population of mountain gorillas in the world.
Since being part of our first workshop in Makerere University, Peter has gone on to win two Africa-wide competitions for sculptural awards and has been involved in other workshops including the Rock Music, Rock Art project. Peter has visited the UK on several occasions and in 2022 was awarded a Patrick & Joan Leigh Fermor Arts Fund Residency at Pangolin London, culminating in a acclaimed solo exhibition in 2024.
