Kizito Maria Kasule
Kizito Maria Kasule
Painter, sculptor, lecturer and Dean of the Maragret Trowell School of Industrial and Fine Art (MTSFIFA), Makerere University. Born in Masaka, Uganda 1969.
In 1994 he held his first solo exhibition, which received very good reviews. Kizito Maria Kasule has exhibited his art works throughout East-Africa, Belgium, Austria, Germany, Australia, France, Denmark and Norway.
His works have been collected by public institutions, co-operations and private collectors in Uganda and abroad. Among these are CIT and Crane Bank,Unganda, World Bank offices, New York and Kampala, National Museum of Canada, Vancouver, African Museum, Johannesburg, South Africa, National Museum of Kenya, Nairobi, and National Museum of Namibia, Makerere. University gallery, Uganda, and in private art collections internationally.
Kizito graduated in fine arts from Makerere University, Kampala. In 2003 he completed his PhD and won a 2 year scholarship to Burren College, University of Dublin, Ireland.
Kizito Maria is a philanthropist, social entrepreneur and community activist and his time at burren college gave the inspiration to creat a different art education institurion, and in 2006 the idea about Nagenda International Academy for Art and Design (NIAAD) was born. Kizito donated his private home and in 2009 he founded NIAAD, affiliated to Kyambogo University, Uganda, and built the school on the premises. NIAAD was founded with the aspiration to utilise all his skills and experience to provide a brighter future for youth at risk and vulnerable communities in Kampala and its surrounding areas.
The academy equips it's students with art entrepreneurial skills and knowledge to enable them to market their products and offer a way out of the cycle of unemployment and poverty. It also offers a safe and encouraging environment in which troubled youth can work through their traumas and begin to envisage a life beyond fear, illness, poverty and abuse. Art, as a non-verbal communication, provides the students with a path for expressing confused feelings that are not understood in the verbal language or able to be healed through traditional therapeutic methods.
