ART AFRICA offers heartfelt condolences to the family and friends of Benon Lutaaya, who passed away on the 14th April 2019.
Benon was a beautiful, generous, wonderful, compassionate person, taken too soon. He was an inspiration to all he met. He knew what he wanted to achieve and set out to do so. He gave so much back and left behind a legacy that will always celebrate his spirit. We celebrate his life and thank him for being a part of ours.
Born in Uganda, Benon moved to South Africa in 2011 as the recipient of an international artist residency award with the Bag Factory Artists’ Studios. In the years that followed, Benon’s career grew from strength to strength. He was a recipient of the 2015 Face of African Youth Foundation – an African Youth Ambassadorial Award at the ADLER Entrepreneurship Awards in Frankfurt, Germany as well as the 2015 Arts and Culture Trust Young Impact Award in the visual arts category. He was a mentor for the Barclays Africa L’Atelier competition’s top 10 finalists in 2016, and was awarded the Citizen Influencer Brand award at the SA Brand Summit in 2018.
His generous and passionate spirit will be remembered through the many South African children’s charities and arts causes he supported, including founding The Project Space, a cultural institution centred on creating spaces, increasing opportunities and access to networks in a bid to encourage and empower more female African artists to engage in full-time activity as artists.
©Benon Lutaaya
Suzette & Brendon Bell-Roberts
