Kateete became a resident of Kenya in 1980 where he has remained till today and it is since then that he continued to mature as an artist while influencing many other artists to improve their skills.
Not only is he a skilled artist but he has the ability to pass his skills onto others and he left many students wanting to be artists from his time as a teacher from 1982 as a Fine Arts Teacher at, Loreto Convent Msongari School in Nairobi.
Kateete began working on his famous oil painting of Nelson Mandela a few days before the icon’s release from Robben Island prison, February 1990.
Kateete was a fine arts teacher at a school whereby the principal suggested that students mark the upcoming release by creating art works. Feeling inspired, Kateete also took up the assignment. He worked off a photograph of Mandela from the Time magazine. He then asked the groundskeeper at his school to be his model, for the man had a similar face structure to Mandela’s. In this way, Kateete made the work less realistic but more natural.
The portrait portrays Mandela’s eyes looking forward and glistening with the tears that he had shed for his country. The middle ground shows Mandela’s footprints in the sand as he walked out of the shackles that bound him at Robben Island.
Kateete presented his portrait to Nelson Mandela during a visit to State House, Kenya in 1990. The portrait is hung prominently in the living room of the Nelson Mandela National Museum in Soweto.
The public acceptance this painting received convinced Kateete he could make a living as a full time artist.
The collection was commissioned by the Nation Media Group in the late 1990s, and twenty-six portraits were produced. The 26 paintings were eventually placed into the Nairobi National Museum where they have been displayed on a regular basis after a 2013 . Humanity Through My Eyes”, exhibition of Kateete’s collection for Celebrating Kenya @50 Years, at the Museum. Each oil painting is approximately 76 x 127 cm in size.
Kateete found the subjects himself and they are typically above the age of eighty. They pose for the portraits in their traditional garb and jewellery, and they showcase their cultural scarification (where present). Furthermore, the subjects in each portrait are predominantly couples, with the image of the man being larger to represent him as the head of the family per his community’s recent traditions.
This collection accomplishes two things. First, it promotes realist and professional African art that contrasts the exotic, young paintings that often stand as the representation of African art in local and international galleries. The second provides anecdotal evidence of 20th and early 21st century traditions to new generations of Africans, for use in defining their present.
Kateete states that “This series is my contribution to the fullest education of our children and theirs, by preserving our traditional lives for them in art. I thus determine the ethnicities and subjects for the series myself. I present a history of the subject(s) in the background based on what they say, while ensuring that history does not detract from the subject as the clear focal point.”
Kateete has become inspired to continue to develop paintings that challenge his style and skill as now with the support of the Kateete Pan-African Foundation he explores additional opportunities to cover environmental and cultural issues through his new paintings.
