'Do what you love...
The Rwandan/German contemporary artist NUKWAMI born in Nyanza is currently based in Berlin.
The pseudonym NUKWAMI, was revealed to him in a dream.
His multi-disciplinary artistic journey started with music and songwriting. Later the self-taught artist expanded his artistic repertoire to visual arts. Today, he focuses on creating colorful illustrations & paintings often merging surrealistic and natural motifs with words and patterns.
In his early visual art works, NUKWAMI was attracted to the concept of creating in a flow state as well as spiritual/meditative practices driven by a longing to tap into the source of creation to become intimate with other dimensions of consciousness and learn from nature in the pursuit of self discovery.
The first two series Journey with Sirus and Beyond depict the attempt to unlearn or deprogram the educated mind and tried to dive beyond an exclusive identity into a more universal and inclusive, expanding awareness, to connect with the realm of the subconscious and explore the depth of the self/soul as deep as possible.
NUKWAMI's recent visual art work is colored by the quest for an authentic signature. On this path of self discovery, he increasingly connected to Afrofusion (e.g. Chef Jean Dieuveil Malonga,), the Afrobeat music culture or the concept of Afrofuturism (e.g. Diébédo Francis Kéré, Nnedi Okorafor, Black Panther, Black is King, etc.), a cultural aesthetic imagining an intersection of a multitude of dimensions through a black cultural lens merging technology, history, fantasy, etc. with the African cultural heritage , the African diaspora culture and the African-American experience.
Beyond this his current work is also influenced by a variety of traditional paintings, fabric designs, craftmanship and other art forms from around the world e.g:
- Traditional Rwandan Imigongo art form or the Rwandan traditional dance
- African Kitenge or Malagasy Lamba fabrics and designs
- Ancient Egypt art and wall painting from Burkina Faso
- Japanese Kimonos, Tibetan Thangkas and Indian Saree designs
- Arabic and Persian carpets designs
- South American fabric and ancient designs from the Inkas to the Mayas
- Native American art and craftmanship
- Indigenous Australian art
- etc.