Working between drawing, painting, printmaking and sculpture, Theresa Musoke experiments with repeating, hybrid forms to develop new means of representing the African landscape and its inhabitants. Born in Uganda in 1944, Musoke was the first woman to earn a degree from the School of Fine Art (now Margaret Trowell School of Industrial and Fine Art) at Makerere University in Kampala, before continuing her studies in London and Philadelphia. She has since split much of her working life between Kampala and Nairobi, where she is recognised as a leading figure in the burgeoning contemporary art scene. Musoke often begins her process by staining canvases with tea and natural dyes. She then identifies and amplifies the patterns formed by the pigmentation, using these incidental markings to shape and contour her compositions. Her techniques vary widely, from the sweeping gestural brushstrokes of expressionism to the intricate dabs of the miniature tradition. The resulting ‘semi-abstraction’ (as Musoke herself describes it) can be seen in the mixed media work Untitled (Happy Days) (1986), which blends phantom-like human figuration into a rolling landscape. The painting is part of Sharjah Art Foundation’s milestone acquisition of six major works by the artist.