Meet Kwizera, a teen who paints about the plight of women

Tresor Kwizera’s abstract paintings have one thing in common, a lady clad in brightly coloured dress, with her baby strapped to her back as she does household chores. “My main objective is to promote the Rwandan woman through art. The role of women in our society has been ignored for long yet they play a crucial role in society. I am promoting that using art,” says Kwizera. Kwizera started painting at the tender age of four and since then he has never looked back. “They used to tell me that children who like drawing perform poorly in class. However, for me I was good in class because I was focused,” he says before revealing that he was inspired by his mother and elder siblings. To improve on his skills, Kwizera started visiting Ivuka Arts where he could interact with different artists. “I wanted them to support me to grow my talent, but they told me it wasn’t going to be easy, even if I knew how to draw , I had to study how to mix colours, paints and the size of the canvass among others.” In 2012, when brothers Emmanuel Nkuranga and Innocent Nkurunziza moved from Ivuka Arts to form Inema Art Centre in Kacyiru, Kwizera shifted with them. It’s at Inema Arts Center, that he created his own style inspired by women he saw in the neighbourhood carrying babies on the backs and heavy stuff on their heads. The same year, he sold his first painting at $50. This piece was unfinished, so I felt like even if I did 100 paintings, I would sell them,” he recollects. Before he starts on a painting, he always knows how it will come out; in spite of the fact they are abstract in nature. Sometimes he paints according to the orders placed. Kwizera was born in a family of seven boys and one girl. The 18-year-old is a telecommunication engineering student at the Association of the Parents for the Promotion of the Education in Rwanda (APAPER), in Kacyiru, and he is a resident painter at the Niyo Art Gallery and a dance trainer with Niyo Cultural Center, in Kacyiru.

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Meet Kwizera, a teen who paints about the plight of women