LEWIS MANISHIMWE is a visual artist, who uses mixed media to create meaningful artworks. His pieces are mostly aimed at highlighting the love between people and nature but particularly at empowering women to address their uniqueness in their nature creation and their ability to do different things.
The artist shared that he ventured into visual arts inspired by his love for arts, and also inspired by his family colleague Tina Crama who was an art teacher in the United States, but later in 2012, he got a chance to join Nyundo School of Arts and Music.
‘‘I fell in love with the creative industry, and I want the world to know how art is amazing. Art is used for many purposes, for me, art is a way of expression where it is used as therapy, entertaining, communication, empowerment, decorate, healing, etc. for me, I use art to spread a positive message around the world,’’ he says.
Having harboured a dream to be self-employed, the 26-year-old started his career professionally in 2015 and is now a visual artist doing mixed media style. Manishimwe also highlighted that he is growing in the industry looking for ways to create something unique and new on the local markets as painting has become more popular.
‘‘When I started art, I used to do painting but the more I grew in my career I realised that art is even more than just doing paintings. Then I came up with the idea of sewing different tissues and mix them with paintings and other different materials to create beautiful pieces of art. Currently, I'm falling in love with modern sculpture too which is a style that I am working on in my next pieces,’’ he said.
"In visual art, mixed media describes artwork with which more than one medium or material has been employed. Assemblages and collages are two common examples of art using different media that will make use of different materials including cloth, paper, wood, colors, and found objects. I am more in cloth materials and paints,'' he further explained.
When it comes to arts Manishimwe doesn't limit himself. He joined an initiative organising refugee children in different parts of the country who have talent in art and he was pleased to be selected as their art teacher.
‘‘Teaching art to children is a blessing, I love sharing my talent with others especially kids. They are full of trust and love and spending time with them gives energy. Seeing them grow their talents has been my greatest joy, I learned a lot from them,'' he told The New Times.
Manishimwe says that the pandemic has been his greatest challenge recently.
‘‘I've been organising an exhibition since 2019, it was supposed to happen in 2020 but the pandemic issue showed up, whenever I think of postponing it, restrictions are tightened up,’’ he added.
Asked where he finds the materials he uses for his craft the artist revealed that most of them come from the USA like paints but others are mainly Made in Rwanda products.
Manishimwe also revealed that so far he has attended a couple of art exhibitions including ‘Roots Arts Exhibition’ with Nitra-Art from Belgium in 2018, ‘UNESCO Paris’ in 2018, ‘Kwita izina’ in 2016, and ‘Rwanda village/RhenanieParatinie’ in 2014 which brought him to the international markets in Belgium and Holland, where he says you can find his artworks. The artist added that his artworks can also be found at the National Museum in Huye district and he started receiving orders from abroad too.
He also advised youth who are afraid of joining the creative industry in different careers or crafts.
‘‘If you have a talent, fall in love with it. Nobody is going to believe in you until you do it by yourself.’’
The artist is currently organising an exhibition to showcase his collection of artworks in his studio which will take place in September.