Looking and Listening: Contemporary Rwandan Art

Sometimes I will look for art and sometimes art will find me. Yesterday was the former (yes I know, I need to write it up) and today was the latter. I was going to my usual lunch place and the small gallery nearby  caught my eye. So I went in to investigate.

The name of the show is ‘Rwanda: A group show by 8contemporary Rwandan artists’ at the Charlie Dutton Gallery. According to the notes, this is the first occasion that Rwandan art has been shown in the UK. They continue, saying that 'in the context of the pressures that the country has faced, the formal teaching of visual art has taken a back seat so it is extraordinary that artists are working and practising to produce art that challenges their understood conventions, represents their own expression and that of their countrymen’.

A long winded way of saying that heartfelt, honest art flourishes regardless of schools. 

A number of works immediately grabbed me and others made me think. The first was Innocent Nkuruinziza’s Untitled (Stripes and Circles) which is a striking piece, with paint thickly rendered in bright exuberant colours in a pattern. It made my eyes dance with the rhythm of the pattern and is just the thing for warming up a cold grey day.