Daniel Atenyi

Born in Jinja, Uganda, in 1997, Daniel Atenyi is a Ugandan artist. He is predominantly self-taught and focuses on charcoal-on-paper creations, spanning from small-scale to large-scale drawings.

Daniel Atenyi's Art Style

Starting in 2020, Daniel Atenyi has been evolving his artistic approach, with charcoal powder emerging as his primary medium. More recently, he has introduced a combination of charcoal powder with pastel powder, alongside incorporating other natural powdered materials such as turmeric and terracotta.

He pulverizes these dry media, creating a powder that he then applies to the paper using brushes and tissue paper. The outcome is a series of half-finished abstracted human figures, characterized by hazy heads and limbs extended with just the outer lines.

Daniel Atenyi's artistic expression is marked by profound personal introspection, blending realism with elements of surrealist abstraction. Through his creations, he delves into the exploration of human experiences, self-absorption, and the healing process. His work embodies an ongoing quest for wholeness and totality within the transient nature of the world. By omitting facial features, he intentionally shifts the emphasis away from individual identity, focusing instead on universal human experiences. In doing so, he skillfully captures subtle nuances of emotions that are frequently left unspoken and overlooked.