{"id":77641,"date":"2025-08-12T17:28:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-12T17:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/77641\/"},"modified":"2025-08-12T17:28:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-12T17:28:09","slug":"donald-wasswas-delicate-wooden-creatures-emerge-from-a-speculative-future-colossal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/77641\/","title":{"rendered":"Donald Wasswa&#8217;s Delicate Wooden Creatures Emerge from a Speculative Future \u2014 Colossal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Using the wood of silk trees, ebony, and embedded copper details, <a href=\"https:\/\/circleartagency.com\/artists\/37-donald-wasswa\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Donald Wasswa<\/a> conjures bold forms evocative of imagined living beings. Based in Kampala, Uganda, Wasswa explores the relationships between\u2014and evolution of\u2014science, technology, society, and environmental transformation. Loosely resembling tentacled jellyfish yet somewhat unsettlingly dark and sharp, his sculptures evoke a distinctive tension between familiarity and the unknown; sentient creatures and the stuff of science fiction.<\/p>\n<p>Through the process of manipulating materials, Wasswa considers the secret lives of familiar objects \u201cand how they might in turn determine future humans,\u201d says <a href=\"https:\/\/circleartagency.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Circle Art Gallery<\/a>, which represents the artist. If you plan to be in London this fall, see Wasswa\u2019s works at contemporary African art fair <a href=\"https:\/\/www.1-54.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">1-54<\/a>, which runs from October 16 to 19.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1945\" height=\"2302\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/wasswa-2.jpg\" alt=\"a wooden sculpture by Donald Wasswa with an abstract, sea creature-like form with long tentacles\" class=\"wp-image-460205\"  \/>\u201cKayondo\u201d (2025), Albizia, ebony, and copper, 40 x 26 x 28 centimeters<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"2500\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/wasswa-3.jpg\" alt=\"a wooden sculpture by Donald Wasswa with an abstract, sea creature-like form with long tentacles\" class=\"wp-image-460206\"  \/>Detail of \u201cKayondo\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1932\" height=\"2327\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/wasswa-6.jpg\" alt=\"a wooden sculpture by Donald Wasswa with an abstract, sea creature-like form with long tentacles\" class=\"wp-image-460209\"  \/>\u201cMuganzi\u201d (2025), Albizia, ebony, and copper, 40 x 34 x 20 centimeters<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1990\" height=\"1573\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/wasswa-8.jpg\" alt=\"a wooden sculpture by Donald Wasswa with an abstract, sci-fi or sea creature-like form with short, black tentacles\" class=\"wp-image-460203\"  \/>\u201cMuhangi\u201d (2025), Albizia, ebony, and copper, 30 x 38 x 30 centimeters<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1968\" height=\"2282\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/wasswa-1.jpg\" alt=\"a wooden sculpture by Donald Wasswa with an abstract, sea creature-like form with long tentacles\" class=\"wp-image-460204\"  \/>\u201cGyagenda\u201d (2025), Albizia, ebony, and copper, 34 x 24 x 20 centimeters<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1906\" height=\"2025\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/wasswa-4.jpg\" alt=\"a wooden sculpture by Donald Wasswa with an abstract, sea creature-like form with long tentacles\" class=\"wp-image-460207\"  \/>\u201cKyomuhendo\u201d (2025), Albizia, ebony, and copper, 38 x 36 x 25 centimeters<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"2259\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/wasswa-7.jpg\" alt=\"a wooden sculpture by Donald Wasswa with an abstract, sea creature-like form with long tentacles\" class=\"wp-image-460202\"  \/>Alternate view of \u201cMuganzi\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thisiscolossal.com\/members\/\" data-type=\"page\" data-id=\"118516\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Colossal Member<\/a> now, and support independent arts publishing.<\/p>\n<p>Hide advertising<\/p>\n<p>Save your favorite articles<\/p>\n<p>Get 15% off in the <a href=\"https:\/\/colossal.shop\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Colossal Shop<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Receive members-only newsletter<\/p>\n<p>Give 1% for art supplies in K-12 classrooms<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Using the wood of silk trees, ebony, and embedded copper details, Donald Wasswa conjures bold forms evocative of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":77642,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[228,226,227,229,54884,88,6702,13708,12259],"class_list":{"0":"post-77641","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-design","12":"tag-donald-wasswa","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-science-fiction","15":"tag-sculpture","16":"tag-wood"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77641\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}