Innocent Nkurunziza
(1986- ) Quiet and tall, Innocent at first appears somewhat mysterious and elusive. His voice is loud and unmistakable though when it comes to his paintings. This Rwandan artist who was born in Uganda to a Rwandan Anglican priest and a mother who eventually had six boys, shows great depth in the many styles through which he has evolved.
Innocent lived in Uganda until he was eleven years old, where he took art classes in primary school. By age 8, he was already carving in wood. His time in Uganda He remembers hearing his parents speak Kinyarwanda around him as a child, but not really understanding what they were saying. As a child, he says, “You didn’t really know where you came from.” In 1997, though, the artist got the chance to come home to Rwanda when his family moved to Gahini. left him with knowledge of English and also a yearning to return to his homeland.
Two life-altering events occurred in Gahini in 2001 for this artist. His mother passed away due to a heart attack. This traumatic event would eventually drive his family to go to Kigali in 2003 to escape the painful memories. At this crucial time in the artist’s life, an English professor of painting from Cambridge arrived in Gahini to provide art workshops to children. The 3-month workshop started off with about 80 children, but after the second month, there was only one student left: Innocent.
At age 15, Innocent became the sole recipient of the great store of artistic knowledge of this professor. Lessons on mixing colors and studies of light and darkness led into studies on watercolors, landscapes, and still lifes. Another artist also influenced Innocent. Nkurunziza was first introduced to Collin Sekajugo by a mutual friend back in 2000. Collin even helped to guide him through some of the different styles in which he has painted. Innocent currently exhibits at Ivuka Arts in Kigali, Rwanda, an art center which was established by Collin.
A painting which is as vibrant and colorful as the story behind it shows three figures represented with masks. Friends (2010), shown below, tells the story of three little neighbor girls who are so inseparable that everyone thinks they are triplets. Innocent says they are friends who grew up together, “who are now more like sisters and even look alike.” The artist has an unusual technique beautifully depicted by The Beach (2009). This was the first “tape painting” the artist ever made. The artist starts by allowing paint to roll around on a canvas, creating a background pattern. Then masking tape is applied to the canvas to stop the absorption of future colors on this chosen grid. The artist then paints the remaining areas with abstracted forms. Upon removal of the tape, a strikingly beautiful contrast and structure for the forms is created.
The artist has had an explosion of monumental pieces in 2010. Motherhood is one of the largest pieces the artist currently has on display. This worthy subject seems to demand a large space. Five figures stand before us. The two one the ends are the bookends of women with babies as the foundation of motherhood. The figure in the middle shows a woman in the full flush of pregnancy. The woman on her right, in the words of the artist, “shows the strength of woman.” The figure which truly completes this work, is the male figure just to the left of center with a child on his lap. For as the painting so gently reminds us, fatherhood is a symbiotic part of motherhood.
Innocent also works with women and children on a regular basis, teaching them how to make necklaces from beads made from pages from a magazine. His jewelry line is known as “Nziza Jewelry Rwanda”, a name derived from the part of his surname which means “greatness”.
The world is much indebted to George Hicks, the English professor who came to Rwanda to teach children’s workshops on art in 2001, and to those artists around Innocent here in Rwanda who continue to inspire him. Innocent’s art has long been popular here in Rwanda, and now his art is about to cause reverberations on the international art scene with an upcoming solo exhibition at an art gallery in USA.
