NOURISHMENT is Sanaa Gateja’s first solo exhibition in Los Angeles at Karma. The show precedes Gateja’s inclusion in the Venice Biennale’s Ugandan Pavilion, curated by Acaye Kerunen. Gateja builds intricate assemblages from thousands of hand-rolled paper beads sewn onto bark cloth.

Gateja’s work and practice is inspired by the blacksmiths, potters, and basket weavers he grew up admiring. He joined Uganda’s Ministry of Culture and Community Development shortly after graduating secondary school. In 1972, he opened Sanaa Gallery in Kenya and specialized in the sale of traditional Kenyan crafts, especially beadwork. Later on, he studied interior design and jewelry-making in Osaka, Florence, and London. It was not until John Cass College of Art (now London College of Art and Design) in London that he first encountered paper beads which now populate his artworks. In 1990, he returned to Uganda, bringing the techniques with him and teaching them to locals, who in turn assemble the beads that become the basis of Gateja’s works. In the years since, a whole economy has sprung up around the production of paper beads in the country and beyond. The works in NOURISHMENT contend with this cycle of mutual influence and support.

The exhibition runs until May 18.