{"id":1722,"date":"2025-08-12T07:08:23","date_gmt":"2025-08-12T14:08:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/?p=1722"},"modified":"2025-08-12T07:08:23","modified_gmt":"2025-08-12T14:08:23","slug":"donald-wasswas-delicate-wooden-creatures-emerge-from-a-speculative-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/?p=1722","title":{"rendered":"Donald Wasswa\u2019s Delicate Wooden Creatures Emerge from a Speculative Future"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thisiscolossal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/wasswa-5-e1755005004708.jpg\" alt=\"Donald Wasswa\u2019s Delicate Wooden Creatures Emerge from a Speculative Future\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Using the wood of silk trees, ebony, and embedded copper details, <a href=\"https:\/\/circleartagency.com\/artists\/37-donald-wasswa\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Donald Wasswa<\/a> conjures bold forms evocative of imagined living beings. Based in Kampala, Uganda, Wasswa explores the relationships between\u2014and evolution of\u2014science, technology, society, and environmental transformation. Loosely resembling tentacled jellyfish yet somewhat unsettlingly dark and sharp, his sculptures evoke a distinctive tension between familiarity and the unknown; sentient creatures and the stuff of science fiction.<\/p>\n<p>Through the process of manipulating materials, Wasswa considers the secret lives of familiar objects \u201cand how they might in turn determine future humans,\u201d says <a href=\"https:\/\/circleartagency.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Circle Art Gallery<\/a>, which represents the artist. If you plan to be in London this fall, see Wasswa\u2019s works at contemporary African art fair <a href=\"https:\/\/www.1-54.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">1-54<\/a>, which runs from October 16 to 19.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1945\" height=\"2302\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thisiscolossal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/wasswa-2.jpg\" alt=\"a wooden sculpture by Donald Wasswa with an abstract, sea creature-like form with long tentacles\" class=\"wp-image-460205\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">\u201cKayondo\u201d (2025), Albizia, ebony, and copper, 40 x 26 x 28 centimeters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"2500\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thisiscolossal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/wasswa-3.jpg\" alt=\"a wooden sculpture by Donald Wasswa with an abstract, sea creature-like form with long tentacles\" class=\"wp-image-460206\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Detail of \u201cKayondo\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1932\" height=\"2327\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thisiscolossal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/wasswa-6.jpg\" alt=\"a wooden sculpture by Donald Wasswa with an abstract, sea creature-like form with long tentacles\" class=\"wp-image-460209\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">\u201cMuganzi\u201d (2025), Albizia, ebony, and copper, 40 x 34 x 20 centimeters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1990\" height=\"1573\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thisiscolossal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/wasswa-8.jpg\" alt=\"a wooden sculpture by Donald Wasswa with an abstract, sci-fi or sea creature-like form with short, black tentacles\" class=\"wp-image-460203\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">\u201cMuhangi\u201d (2025), Albizia, ebony, and copper, 30 x 38 x 30 centimeters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1968\" height=\"2282\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thisiscolossal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/wasswa-1.jpg\" alt=\"a wooden sculpture by Donald Wasswa with an abstract, sea creature-like form with long tentacles\" class=\"wp-image-460204\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">\u201cGyagenda\u201d (2025), Albizia, ebony, and copper, 34 x 24 x 20 centimeters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1906\" height=\"2025\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thisiscolossal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/wasswa-4.jpg\" alt=\"a wooden sculpture by Donald Wasswa with an abstract, sea creature-like form with long tentacles\" class=\"wp-image-460207\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">\u201cKyomuhendo\u201d (2025), Albizia, ebony, and copper, 38 x 36 x 25 centimeters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"2000\" height=\"2259\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thisiscolossal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/wasswa-7.jpg\" alt=\"a wooden sculpture by Donald Wasswa with an abstract, sea creature-like form with long tentacles\" class=\"wp-image-460202\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Alternate view of \u201cMuganzi\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thisiscolossal.com\/members\">Colossal Member<\/a> today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thisiscolossal.com\/2025\/08\/donald-wasswas-wood-sculptures\/\">Donald Wasswa\u2019s Delicate Wooden Creatures Emerge from a Speculative Future<\/a> appeared first on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thisiscolossal.com\/\">Colossal<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Using the wood of silk trees, ebony, and embedded copper details, Donald Wasswa conjures bold forms evocative of imagined living beings. Based in Kampala, Uganda, Wasswa explores the relationships between\u2014and&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1722\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}