On July 6, Greta Ingabire, a young aspiring Rwandan visual artist, will be launching her first solo exhibition dubbed, ‘Spoken Art Exhibition’. The two-week exhibition will run from July 6-20, at Innovation Village at the Kigali Public Library. The 21-year-old has always loved painting that she curved a career out of it after she enrolled at Nyundo School of Art and Music for three years, where she learned painting and drawing. Although this will be her first solo exhibition where she will be displaying her Art works, Ingabire has attended several other exhibitions including an all-women’s art exhibition and has also participated in the Kama Arts exhibitions. A look at Ingabire’s expressional paintings quickly reveals her artistic passion for humanity. Her upcoming exhibition, however will pay homage to women in general, addressing societal stereotypes that women deal with every day. “I expect the paintings to talk to people in different ways and heal them in different ways because it talks about women stereotypes and I hope it changes them,” she says. Despite her young age, Ingabire is also passionate about acting that as soon as she completed high school, she began putting her passion into use working with Ishyo Arts Centre, as well as other acting gigs. Besides acting and painting, she is also a poetess and slammer, whose works she has shared on her YouTube channel, Ingabire Greta, where she shares some of her poetry, and has participated in the Transpoesis Competition as well as Spoken Word Rwanda. “I started writing when I was still young, writing in journals until I started writing some abstracts and people started complimenting that I was writing poetry. I later started writing on a daily basis and I got inspired by different poets in Rwanda and abroad, that’ later introduced me to slamming in my high school,” she shares. Born June 5 1998, she attended primary at SOS in Kigali, and Complex Scholaire les petit poussin now called Mother Mary school complex, in Kibagabaga. She later attended her O’ level education at St Ignatius high school in Kibagabaga, Maranyundo Girls’ school in Bugesera, and King David Academy in Kanombe, before joining Nyundo School of art and music. She began doing art since high school and joined Gama Arts Foundation in 2015, where she participated in many of their programs and exhibition. “I have been into my careers after my high school, figuring out what am capable of doing and developing my talents. I am planning to join university this year for marketing courses, but if there was a chance for me to go for art abroad, I would definitely go for it,” she said. editor@newtimesrwanda.com
