Sanaa Gateja is renowned for his intricate, large-scale tapestries incorporating natural and recycled materials, where thousands of hand-rolled paper beads are meticulously assembled into richly textured compositions, an approach that has earned him the moniker “The Bead King” in Uganda.
Working with natural material such as bark cloth, raffia, paper, wood, and banana fiber alongside upcycled man-made waste, Gateja creates abstract pieces that exist between tapestry, installation, and sculpture. His practice is defined by a sensitivity to material, allowing each element to retain its own presence while contributing to a larger visual language. Bark cloth, in particular, serves as both a physical and conceptual foundation in his work, layering his compositions onto a material deeply embedded in regional histories and cultural memory.
Born in Musanze in 1950, in the final decade before Uganda’s independence from Britain, he moved to Kisoro at the age of five. At the time, the region was part of the Kingdom of Rwanda, but it became part of the state of Uganda in 1962. This fluid cultural landscape, which Gateja experienced in his early life, continues to inform his artistic perspective.
He later studied interior design in Florence and jewellery design in London, where he first encountered and engaged with the design of paper beads. Upon returning to Uganda in 1990, he not only developed his distinctive artistic practice but also initiated community-based projects, teaching paper bead-making as a means of economic empowerment for women and youth.
Gateja’s works unfold as layered, abstract narratives that reflect on social, political, and environmental realities in Uganda and beyond. Through a process of assembling, weaving, and embedding, he creates compositions that function as both aesthetic objects and carriers of meaning, addressing issues of sustainability, heritage, community and collective memory. His practice ultimately bridges tradition and innovation, transforming humble materials into expansive visual meditations on resilience and interconnectedness.
Gateja’s work has been presented in Africa at Makerere Art Gallery, Makerere University (Kampala, Uganda); Afriart Gallery (Kampala, Uganda); and 50 Golborne (Shela, Kenya/ London, United Kingdom), as well as internationally at the 58th Carnegie International (Pittsburgh, United States, 2022–2023); Karma Gallery (New York, United States, solo exhibition, 2023); and institutions including the Museum of Art and Design (New York, United States), the de Young Museum (San Francisco, United States), Art Basel, 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair, and Frieze. His work is held in public collections including the Kigali Genocide Memorial (Kigali, Rwanda); Uganda Museum (Kampala, Uganda); Fondation H (Antananarivo, Madagascar); the Victoria and Albert Museum (London, United Kingdom); the Carnegie Museum of Art (Pittsburgh, United States); the Field Museum (Chicago, United States); and the National Museum of Scotland (Edinburgh, United Kingdom). Sanaa Gateja represented the Ugandan Pavil-ion at the 60th Venice Biennale in 2024.
Selected Press:
GameliHamelo for Observer: Craftand Kinship: How Sanaa Gateja’s Art Anchors Community.2025.
Marcus Gavin for Bomb Magazine: Making art with paper beads and barkcloth. 2023
Sarah Souli for WePresent: Sanaa Gateja - Carving a path in the East African craft movement. 2022.
Pamela Bentley for Art Africa Magazine: Something like a Constellation. 2019.
Arctic Paper: Interview with Sanaa Gateja: He fights Poverty in Uganda through Art. 2018.
