25-year-old King Christian Dusabe started drawing at the age of five. However, he didn’t have a tutor, but being a sharp kid with a passion to draw, he searched for ways to boost his skills. He copied artwork from comic books and book illustrations, anything he got his hands on. Later on, he was taken to study graphic art at Ecole d’Art de Nyundo, where he learned the fundamentals of painting and illustrations. He is a painter, and his art can be considered figurative or portraiture, and human figures are his prime subject. Though he practiced art for a long time, he started it as a profession in 2017. “The most important thing I have achieved in art is the confidence to communicate ideas or provoke dialogue through my work,” he says. For Dusabe, it’s been quite a milestone. He was lucky to feature in numerous exhibitions like ‘Beauty as Medicine” at Kigali Convention Center curated by Maison Beaulier (a platform for artists to showcase their work in eccentric spaces) in 2019. In 2018, he won the Auto-Portrait contest that took place in Gisenyi. In 2020, he displayed his work in the Mind and Space Virtual Exhibition organised by Kuuru Art Space. Still in 2020, he showcased his work in an exhibition by Isi Art Community in Rwanda and in the second international “Works on Paper” in Kragujevac, Serbia. Some of his artwork. Dusabe’s process of painting is kind of irregular and since he is a detail-oriented painter, a medium sized painting normally takes him three days to finish. He usually listens to music or art podcasts while painting. He primarily uses acrylic to paint and a canvas as his support, but he explores other ways as well, such as oil, watercolour, pen and pencil. His art pieces go for $250 to $1,200. Some of his artwork can be found in his gallery in Kacyiru, and he also sells on multiple online gallery platforms like Bandombe Gallery in DRC and Komeza Art in Rwanda. One of the challenges he faces is failure to get clients in this Covid-19 period, considering that there are no events taking place to promote artists’ work. The youngster would like to explore and grow in artistic expression to inspire the younger generation and make a sustainable living out of art. When asked which artist inspires him, he says that he looks up to many local contemporary artists, but mostly enthused by Epa Binamungu’s consistency and his work ethic. Dusabe is the fourth in five children. Growing up drawing somehow worried his parents as he couldn’t balance his studies and drawing aptitude, but his family has always been supportive. So far, he hasn’t had the privilege to share his skills with others in form of training, but it’s something he envisions in the future. Apart from painting, he is interested in photography, graphic design, and animation. He is currently studying Digital Media Production at Integrated Polytechnic Regional Centre-IPRC Kigali.
