Kampala — CURIOSITY grips me when I arrive at the Makerere University School of Industrial and Fine Arts gallery. A two-week exhibition depicting artworks from the school's archives opened on Tuesday.

Paintings and sculptures executed by students since 1960 are on display. The exhibition attempts to depict how art has evolved at Makerere over the decades, from the Trowellian religiously-inspired themes as shown in Kefa Ssempangi's sculpture: "Religion versus Witchcraft" to the representational semi-realistic images of the 80s to the semi-abstract imagery of the 90s and 2000s.

Far from just parading what the organisers questionably call "some of the school's best collections, the show puts Makerere on a pedestal.

The 1960s and 1970s work adheres a lot to primitive characteristics, depicting rural village scenes as shown in Mukasa W B's Banana (of a lush green banana plantation) and Peter Binaka's "cattle"(of cattle feeding from a water basin).

This style persisted through the 80s and the 90s. Characterised by simplified forms and crowded rural settings, this work draws some inspiration from the earlier periods, this time with a lot more attention to colour variations, a conventional mode of drawing and pictorial composition.

Works of the late 1990s and the 2000s shows more adherence to formalistic approach in technique application. Even then, there remains an evident lack of freedom in execution of work by the students.

And with just a handful of works on display, we fail to feel the impact of an institution that has existed for over four decades. Makerere has produced more accomplished artists.

Dr. Pilkington Ssengendo, Francis Nagenda, Francis Musangogwantamu and many others. Where are their works?