Courtesy of Conrad Nkamwesiga
On the walls of the Craighead Green Gallery in Dallas, one of the 50 New Texas Talent 33 contest winners, graduate student Conrad Nkamwesiga’s painting “Gold Dust Daughters in a Dust-Stained World” resides.
New Texas Talent has held an open call for emerging Texas artists for the past 33 years, said Frederick Wikelski, Craighead Green Gallery gallery assistant. This year they had around 600 applicants, Wikelski said, with each able to submit up to three works.
“People come in from all across the state to see the work; it’s always exciting to have a lot of people come far and wide to see the show,” he said.
With more than 1,500 artworks across various mediums, juror Daisha Board, a well-known artist in the Dallas art scene, selected 50 works.
“It’s really important for emerging artists to get the attention they deserve,” Wikelski said. “A lot of people can just get intimidated by just putting their work out there, and this just turns into a really great starting point and stepping stone.”
When Nkamwesiga first got the news about being selected, he thought it was a prank. On a “lazy Saturday,” a friend called him to congratulate him on winning the competition. A few hours later, he got the notification from Board on Instagram.
“It kind of felt so surreal,” he said. “Being among the best of the best, being selected among the top 50 out of such a big multitude of artists — it’s really, really humbling.”
Nkamwesiga said he submitted three paintings. Two he created this year, and “Gold Dust Daughters in a Dust-Stained World,” which he created last fall over a course of six weeks.
Combining oil, acrylic and hair waste, the painting features two albino women out in the sun, tending to each other’s hair. He depicts them with no shoes on, seated in the dirt, with hair products on the side, and makeshift houses and people in the distance.
Nkamwesiga said the structures represent a village setting in Africa. The setting was intentional, he said, to create a conversation on how albino people are marginalized in that type of environment.
“I wanted to depict people like two albinos uplifting one another,” Nkamwesiga said. “Showing each other that they are beautiful and wonderfully made just the way they are; they aren’t a mistake, and I find that really poetic and beautiful.”
He said painting was a natural talent he found out he had, but it wasn’t until the COVID-19 pandemic that he decided to pursue painting as a career. As an international student from Uganda, Nkamwesiga said he paints what he sees, influenced by the people around him.
“It’s the best way for me to communicate, it’s the best way for me to resonate with other people,” he said.
As Nkamwesiga moved from Uganda to Texas, he said his painting style no longer worked.
“The professors I had back in Uganda taught me to paint some type of way, which was good for the time when I was there,” he said. “But when I came here, I found that painting style wasn’t quite relevant when I was here because I was in a whole new place, all different people, different culture, different language, different time zone, so I had to reorient.”
Nkamwesiga said his UTA professors have helped him become the artist he is today.
“I’ve always been evolving,” he said. “As I grow older, as I get to experience different things, as I go through different life stages, I notice my painting style changing and I do feel that’s a good thing because I don’t think we should be stagnated.”
The exhibit, which features one of Nkamwesiga’s works, will be showcased until Aug. 22.
“I study people, I study cultures. I love making sense of things that I see, and the best way I can translate that is through painting it,” Nkamwesiga said.
@atclements03