What motivates you to do what you do? For artist Romeo Niyigena, God is his motivation as he believes that it’s His artistic creation that has allowed him to discover the passion to imitate nature with his brush and paint. Speak all the languages you know, it’s only one that he understands better—creating the environment and people on canvas, and making sense of his fabrication. On a chilly Wednesday afternoon, as I enter his art studio in Kanombe, which he created last year, he is seated alone listening to soft instrumental music, while mixing his paints. He seems busy, yet at the same time relishing what he is doing. Niyigena welcomes me in with a smile and shortly after, takes me through some of his handiwork, he seems to connect with almost all his finished work. When I ask him why he plays instrumental music while working, he says that it’s a way to enable him to focus on his work and avert distractions. Music calms his mind and reminds him of the beauty he must create. Artists have a way they speak to their work, when Niyigena tries to explain more about his art pieces one by one, he is filled with emotions. For him, art offers him company and allows him to express his ideas, but also a form of therapy. Unlike other artists who specialise in a specific genre, he wants to differ, which is why he is experienced in contemporary artist mostly painting, and engrossed in versatile techniques, and mediums of art where he experiments and plays with different color pallets, textures, and other unusual materials to face new challenges, such as mural paintings, or just create with a pen on paper. “With art, I can attest that I have been able to fathom my surroundings, view life in a different perspective. Just like one can note down their daily events and activities, I want to show the world that art can be a record tool that even the future generation will refer to when they want to know history, which is why I paint the diversity of the environment,” he states. The painter notes that his impetus has been the eagerness to fashion better artwork than the former one. His ideas are derived from research, especially with the help of the internet, and also learning from other artists and cultures, mostly in Africa. “Usually, before working on any project, I discover ideas, inspirations, and messages I would like to portray. Thereafter, I choose the materials suitable for the project. After getting an idea and inspiration about my project, I start thinking about materials which will be suitable for it. He expresses that some of his mediums are flamed canvas, paints and textures, and newspapers. When it comes to paints and textures, Niyigena uses acrylics more than oils, as it dries faster, allowing him to create textures and applying more layers to his paintings, plus its final appearance is exceptional. For every art piece, he says it has its own expression, vibe and story behind it. For instance, a rough texture means strength, energy and invincibility. The painter stresses that the reason he uses newspapers in his art pieces is to break the myth that ‘Africans don’t want to read and to hide information from them, one must put it into writing.’ He is of the view that Africans are now writing their stories, which are inspirational, educative and interesting. “The newspaper I use for every African person I paint, symbolises the books we read, write and hope to keep recording. Growing up, newspapers were our home wall decor. It was our uniqueness in the whole village, my brother and I have replaced them with painted canvas,” he emphasises. His desire for art Niyigena was born in Rwanda in 1999, though he discovered his undeniable passion for art at a tender age, he acquired skilled training at Ecole D’arts de Nyundo where he pursued a course in Graphic Arts and graduated in 2018. Doing what he loves and earning from it encourages him to keep working. He believes that one day, he will be on everyone’s lips, for the right reasons— celebrating his talent and going places for his peculiarity. For him, every art piece has a poetic expression about it. He was able to organise his first solo art exhibition in August, and looks forward to other solo exhibitions in March and July next year.
