As an expert in wood carving, Dr. Lilian Mary Nabulime realized that sculpture is one way of conserving Uganda’s wood/trees. She often works with wood and found materials, producing figurative forms or functional everyday objects that retain the qualities of the material. She is interested in the ways that materials connote certain ideas for viewers, such as familiarity in everyday life or assumptions of accessibility. As an artist, she devotes herself to aspects of social life, including intersecting experiences in politics, gender, race and disease that respond to the context of modern Africa. Gendered associations with femininity or masculinity are bound in the formal qualities of her works.
Dr. Nabulime is a sculptor and Senior Lecturer (since 1984) at the Department of Fine Art, Margaret Trowell School of Industrial and Fine Arts, College of Engineering, Design, Art and Technology (CEDAT), Makerere University, Kampala. She holds a B.A. (1984) and M.A. (1993) in Fine Art from the same university. In 2007, she completed her PhD from Newcastle University, titled “The Role of Sculptural Forms as a Communication Tool in Relation to the Lives and Experiences of Women with HIV/AIDS in Uganda (practice/ theory-based research in Fine Art).” Her PhD research resulted into Male and Female Transparent Soap Sculptures (2004), employing soap, with its associations as a cleansing agent, to raise questions about sexuality and HIV/AIDS.
Dr. Nabulime’s work has been documented through journal articles, newspapers, websites, radio, and TV, both local and international. In 2011 she was awarded with the Robert Sterling Fellowship at Vermont Studio Center, USA and in 2012 with the Commonwealth Fellowship in Durham, UK. She has exhibited both locally and internationally. Recent exhibitions include “Olugambo” (Gossip) at “Embodying Social Being” at Somerset House, London (2023), Xenson Art Space, Kampala (2023), “Sculptures (1993 – 2018) by Dr Lilian M Nabulime”, a retrospective at Afriart Gallery, Kampala (2018) and the India Ceramics Triennale 2024 “Common Ground, A joint collaboration of Andrew Burton and Lilian Mary Nabulime” at Artshila, Okhla.
She initiated the L.M. Nabulime Foundation in 2021, a cultural centre located in Kyanji, Kampala. The centre comprises of a gallery space called Lisha Gallery and residential units to accommodate artists and other cultural practitioners. After actively practicing as a sculptor for over three decades, she conceived the L.M. Nabulime Foundation as a sanctuary for art and social practice as well as knowledge production. Having participated in several local and international exhibitions, residencies and workshops, enriched Dr. Nabulime’s dream to have art studios and a gallery space to be shared with artists.
