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Artists' Biographies - Ivuka Arts Studio

Innocent Nkurunziza

(1986- ) Quiet and tall, Innocent at first appears somewhat mysterious and elusive. His voice is loud and unmistakable though when it comes to his paintings. This Rwandan artist who was born in Uganda to a Rwandan Anglican priest and a mother who eventually had six boys, shows great depth in the many styles through which he has evolved.

Innocent lived in Uganda until he was eleven years old, where he took art classes in primary school. By age 8, he was already carving in wood. His time in Uganda left him with knowledge of English and also a yearning to return to his homeland. He remembers hearing his parents speak Kinyarwanda around him as a child, but not really understanding what they were saying. As a child, he says, “You didn’t really know where you came from.” In 1997, though, the artist got the chance to come home to Rwanda when his family moved to Gahini.

Two life-altering events occurred in Gahini in 2001 for this artist. His mother passed away due to a heart attack. This traumatic event would eventually drive his family to go to Kigali in 2003 to escape the painful memories. At this crucial time in the artist’s life, an English professor of painting from Cambridge arrived in Gahini to provide art workshops to children. The 3-month workshop started off with about 80 children, but after the second month, there was only one student left: Innocent.

At age 15, Innocent became the sole recipient of the great store of artistic knowledge of this professor. Lessons on mixing colors and studies of light and darkness led into studies on watercolors, landscapes, and still lifes. Another artist also influenced Innocent. Nkurunziza was first introduced to Collin Sekajugo by a mutual friend back in 2000. Collin even helped to guide him through some of the different styles in which he has painted. Innocent currently exhibits at Ivuka Arts in Kigali, Rwanda, an art center which was established by Collin.

A painting which is as vibrant and colorful as the story behind it shows three figures represented with masks. Friends (2010), shown below, tells the story of three little neighbor girls who are so inseparable that everyone thinks they are triplets. Innocent says they are friends who grew up together, “who are now more like sisters and even look alike.” The artist has an unusual technique beautifully depicted by The Beach (2009). This was the first “tape painting” the artist ever made. The artist starts by allowing paint to roll around on a canvas, creating a background pattern. Then masking tape is applied to the canvas to stop the absorption of future colors on this chosen grid. The artist then paints the remaining areas with abstracted forms. Upon removal of the tape, a strikingly beautiful contrast and structure for the forms is created.

The artist has had an explosion of monumental pieces in 2010. Motherhood is one of the largest pieces the artist currently has on display. This worthy subject seems to demand a large space. Five figures stand before us. The two one the ends are the bookends of women with babies as the foundation of motherhood. The figure in the middle shows a woman in the full flush of pregnancy. The woman on her right, in the words of the artist, “shows the strength of woman.” The figure which truly completes this work, is the male figure just to the left of center with a child on his lap. For as the painting so gently reminds us, fatherhood is a symbiotic part of motherhood.

Innocent also works with women and children on a regular basis, teaching them how to make necklaces from beads made from pages from a magazine. His jewelry line is known as “Nziza Jewelry Rwanda”, a name derived from the part of his surname which means “greatness”.

The world is much indebted to George Hicks, the English professor who came to Rwanda to teach children’s workshops on art in 2001, and to those artists around Innocent here in Rwanda who continue to inspire him. Innocent’s art has long been popular here in Rwanda, and now his art is about to cause reverberations on the international art scene with an upcoming solo exhibition at an art gallery in Sweden.

Valerie Ficklin, M.A.

(If you would like to contact the artist, you can reach him at getinnonkuru@gmail.com.)

Emmanuel Nkuranga

(1987- ) The second born in a family of six boys, Emmanuel lived in Uganda for the first ten years of his life. He describes his parents as “calm and happy” which is very believable when you spend time with the artist. His father is an Anglican priest who went to Uganda to study theology. Emmanuel played a lot of sports during his childhood, such as soccer and basketball, and still does as an adult. This really is not too shocking, because Emmanuel strikes one as a playful person and this exuberance for life translates into his art.

The artist moved to Rwanda in 1997 and attended two different high schools. He then attended Kigali Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) and earned a degree in information technology. He speaks English, Kinyarwanda, Luganda, a little Swahili and some French. His mother passed away in 2001. The artist says he is close to his dad and his four brothers who live in Kigali.

Emmanuel started his artistic career drawing “Tom and Jerry” style cartoons with his brothers. He says they would draw pictures of every day events like a “dog chasing a car”. While in high school, he visited his uncle, Sanna Gateja, who is a painter and Emmanuel says he got his passion for painting from him. Then he met Collin Sekajugo, a well known Rwandan artist, and Collin inspired him “to start playing with paintings”. It was 2004 when Collin showed him how to transform sketches into paintings and made him believe art was “doable”.

Nkuranga does paintings and mixed media works and has also done a few found object pieces. He uses acrylic on canvas and also local materials, like the woven circles often worn as earrings by women in Rwanda. He prefers to work in a semi-abstracted style.

Activity (2010), shown below, portrays three women bent over their washtubs “working according to the pattern of Rwandan society”. The artists reveals that he mixes fast dry paints usually used for cars with his acrylic and then shapes the paint with his palette knife. The car paint becomes soft when mixed with acrylic. This innovation has allowed the artist to create a medium he can really mold to his desires. Bark from a tree has become an integral part of the canvas surface at the top of this work.

A truly monumental and beautifully vibrant work, Birthday (2010) reveals the artist’s ability to “play” at paining as he says. The bright red background and pieces of local fabric play off of each other and serve to highlight the two main figures. One is playing a drum and the other is drinking from a traditional container, perhaps milk or beer. This is a traditional birthday celebration in Rwanda. The artist has also incorporated the traditional woven circles worn as earrings here to define the faces of the figures.

Home Again (2010) strikes you first with its shear beauty and its unusual shape. Painted on a large leaf from a palm tree that the artist brought from Tanzania and then dried, the piece shows four fish “feeling good in the water” and “going home again.” Emmanuel says he wanted to explore working on different materials. The playful quality of Emmanuel’s work is consistent with his nature.

His art is playful, but no less mature or beautiful, for that quality. And Emmanuel is very serious about helping orphans through his program called Art with a Mission. This project which he started in 2010, involves the artist and his friends going to two different orphanages, MPORE, in Gikondo, Rwanda and a FIDESCO orphanage in Kigali. They bring supplies with them and give the teenagers, ages 14 to 17, lessons in “playing with painting.” They try to hold classes two times a week. Emmanuel had an exhibition at the Kigali International Airport where half of the proceeds went towards his program.

The artists is multitalented and has designed websites for other artists and also creates pieces which incorporate old machine parts, such as pieces of radios and even motherboards. One gets the sense that Emmanuel really enjoys exploring and playing with new media. He often uses the expression “playing with painting” and it is so apt as he clearly enjoys creating his beautiful pieces and the viewer can then vicariously participate in the play and the fun. In addition, the viewer absorbs the beauty of his works and an understanding of Rwandan culture in the same moment. One wonders where the artist will go next on his exploration of art.

Valerie Ficklin, M.A.

(If you would like to contact the artist, you can reach him at emmamain23@gmail.com.)