Joshua Tuyishime (1988- )
 | Joshua Tuyishime speaks well for the school system of Kigali. A bright, talented visual and recording artist, he attended both primary and secondary school in that capital city. Joshua has enormous amibitions both for himself and for the Rwandan art community as a whole and also has the skills to accomplish his lofty goals. Despite having been trained under a French system, he speaks English wonderfully. Joshua says this is the result of having lots of friends and family in Canada and the United States. He has cousins in Brooklyn, Canada and Australia. He started studying art in secondary school and did his A-levels in art. His Rwandan teachers were formally trained at Nyundo Art School in Gisenyi. He took a course called “painting and decoration” and also one called “sculpture and ceramics”. In these courses, he learned about painting techniques, the mixing of colors, and perspective. He finished school in 2008 and met Collin Sekajuko, the artist who started Ivuka Arts Studio, in 2009. The day Joshua went to see Ivuka was the day he started painting with the artists who exhibit there. In 2010, he started to exhibit at Uburanga Art Studio. |
The artist is shown above holding a work called Drummers (2010) that shows his modern, vibrant style. Joshua took photographs of Rwandans drumming at parties at Amahoro Stadium and then simplified and abstracted what the camera saw with his own artist-eye. This subject inspired him to do a series of 5 paintings.
Tuyishime did another series about women gathering water for their families, an activity at the heart of traditional Rwandan culture. Source (2010), the first work in this series, shown right, demonstrates another style exploited by the artist to make a different kind of statement. The second painting shows the women walking home and the third work completes the cycle with the women at home with their babies. In Source, yellow, blue and red, the primary colors, are shown at the forefront and are really the only colors in this work. This style is much more painterly and impressionistic than his others. Another work entitled Marketplace (2010), depicted below right, shows a lowly little umbrella which is busy serving as the overhead for a vegetable vendor. The artist has turned this mundane item, which many would walk by without noticing, into a beautiful setting for three market dwellers. Done from a photograph, this work reminds me of the Fauves treatment of Paris, turning the scenes of a city into bright color experiments. Joshua has started to achieve his dreams of expressing himself through music and visual art. His vision is that Rwandan paintings and music will be known around the world. He has written one rap song in English and French each, and is now ready to rap in Kinyarwanda, the native language of Rwanda. He is planning to release his first album in December 2010. His music and his painting showcase the culure of Rwanda for the world. Joshua wants to show the world what is “going on in Rwanda” and what its artists can do. Based on what one sees here, one can imagine that the world will take notice.
Art Historian
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