Artist Database

Kefa Frederick Sempangi (Ugandan, 1939)

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s Ugandan artist Kefa Sempangi’s art practice spanned surrealist portraiture, abstract painting, found object assemblages and cast bronze. His paintings often navigated themes of religion and morality, exploring internal conflicts with an intense concentration of feeling. He explained, ‘it is these hidden forces behind the natural, behind the superficial, behind the seen, that I dedicate myself to capture and portray.’

Sempangi studied fine art at the Margaret Trowell School of Fine Arts in Kampala and at the Royal College of Art in London, where he graduated in 1970. He went on to complete a PhD in Art History at the Vrije University of Amsterdam. On his return to Kampala, Sempangi was appointed art history lecturer at Makerere University. During this time, Sempangi's artwork was exhibited in Uganda and the UK, including at the African Art Centre and the Camden Art Centre in London in 1968 and 1969.

In 1974, Sempangi and his family went into exile in the Netherlands and the USA for six years, where he mobilised funding for Ugandan refugees escaping Idi Amin’s regime whilst studying Divinity in Philadelphia. On his return to Kampala, Sempangi founded the Presbyterian Church of Uganda and worked as a Reverend and in public office until his retirement – continuing a personal art practice alongside this.

Sempangi’s artwork is represented in private and institutional collections in the UK and Uganda, but pieces are rare and hard to find.

Bibliography: Lampert C, Havell J (eds) (1995) Seven Stories About Modern Art in Africa. London: Whitechapel Gallery.

Judith von D. Miller (1975) Art in East Africa: A Guide to Contemporary Art, London: Frederick Muller

Biography courtesy of Circle Art Gallery.