To many, he is simply the Rwandan extension of the popular look-alike Nigerian actors, Aki Chinedu and Popo. That is quite understandable because, like the Nigerian "twins”, 25 year-old visual artist Fabien Akimana looks like a ‘boy’, or is ‘baby-faced’, depending on who you ask. 

But looks aside, Akimana shares one more similarity with his Nigerian look-alikes: he too is into movies, and actually boasts a few Hillywood appearances. He was the principle actor in Eric Mugabo’s 2014 movie, Corruption, and was part of the cast of the film, Akumuntu (Pt 2), also last year. This year, he made his latest Hillywood appearance in the movie, Gaz.

His first acting stint came in 2011, in the movie, Fata Umwana Wese Nkuwawe Pt 2.

Yet Akimana’s first calling is not acting, but rather painting.

Born in 1990 in Muhanga district, Southern Province, the diminutive painter describes himself as "an expressionist artist, meaning that my paintings express themselves.”

After explaining that the style (expressionism) was first developed by German artists after the second world war, he adds that he settled for it "because of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi.”

"In my art, I want to tell people about Rwandan culture, and about unity.”

Generally, his paintings make abundant use of color to depict universal beauty.

Painter from Muhanga

The first thing you will notice about Akimana is the close attachment he maintains to his home town of Muhanga. Not only is it his place of birth, it is also his artistic cradle –the place from where he honed his skill at the pallet. 

Even after establishing his name as a bona fide painter in Kigali, Akimana still prefers the relatively laid-back pace of life back home to the hustle and bustle of city life. He stays in Muhanga with a sister and a brother, and above all, "with all the people of the village”. 

"As artists we always want to work from a place where we can find the right inspiration. When you live in a big city like this (Kigali) it’s hard to get inspired,” he explains.

"However it all depends on the kind of inspiration one wants. I want the kind of inspiration that can help me to promote Rwandan culture and unity. In the city everybody is busy and preoccupied with survival. In the village where I live, many people come to visit me on a daily basis and I also visit a lot. During these visits we converse and I get new ideas.”

Akimana prefers to make the trip to Kigali only when duty calls. 

Presently, he is running a month-long art piece exhibition at the Umubano Hotel in Kacyiru. Under the theme, Forward Colors, the solo exhibition opened to the public on Sunday June 19th, and is on till July 10.

He explains Forward Colors as "a continuation of culture and unity through the reality of universal beauty”. 

More than anything else, walking through the exhibition hall immediately points one to the reality of Akimana’s deep love affair with colors. 

The paintings on display are mostly characterized by palettes of bright primary colors, swirly skies, and human figures whose placement at first sight appears rather whimsical and carefree, lending a signature lyrical quality to his paintings. 

"Everyone loves colors, and personally I love blue,” he explains.

"Another person likes yellow, and another green. Together, all these colors form the national flag of Rwanda, but nobody can have a disagreement with another person because of difference in choice of colors. That’s the beauty of color.”

Started as a joke 

By the age of three, Fabien had already begun to draw. Although at the time he did it just to entertain himself, he recalls that his neighbors did not fail to take notice of his artistic abilities.

At six years of age, he started to experiment with the natural world around him in his drawings. He went from this to creating cars out of used tins. Everything around him became a palette for creativity –from dried maize cobs to make cars and houses, and banana fibre to make footballs. 

Primary school did not provide any artistic opportunities for the young man, and Fabien confesses to having disliked his studies at this point in his life. 

In 2001, when he was only 11 years old and a P5 pupil at Nyabisindu in Gitarama, Akimana took to painting. 

That same year, he won first prize at a United Nations Population and Environment national art competition. 

In 2003, the Rwandan government chose him to represent the children of Rwanda at a conference titled "Children’s Lives: During and After the Genocide”. President Paul Kagame, together with several high ranking UNICEF representatives attended the conference. 

2006 proved a turning point in his career. As part of a competition for works about malaria, Akimana’s work was chosen to be displayed in the office of PNLP, a branch of the Ministry of Health, in Kigali. In the same year, he participated in an "Art for Peace” exhibition and as a result had his work accepted into the permanent collection of the National Art Museum of Rwanda, located in Nyanza. To date, he is the youngest artist to be included in this collection. 

The following two years, he took part in the Art for Peace exhibitions, winning second place both times.

Moving to Kigali

One day in 2008, while painting at a hotel in Muhanga, Akimana met a prominent local artist –William Ngendandumwe, who had also come to paint. 

"He (Ngendandumwe) liked my paintings. By then he was a member of Ivuka Arts so he asked me to come to Ivuka. At Ivuka he took me to the founder, Collin Sekajugo who also immediately liked my work. Collin bought me some paint and a few other materials and I started to paint at Ivuka.”

In 2010, one of the artists at Ivuka, Bosco Bakunzi left to start Uburanga Arts Studio in Kimihurura. Akimana agreed to tag along:

"I believe that when you are an artist, you always have to come up with new things every time,” Akimana explains the reason behind his move: 

"The word "Ivuka” means to give birth. When you are born, you grow up and eventually move out of your parents home to start life on your own.”

He eventually left Uburanga in 2012 to become a solo painter based in his hometown -Muhanga.

Akimana will surprise you with the ease with which he reveals that he has not made a lot of money from his art. 

"I believe that to be an artist does not mean to be rich. I take art as a philosophy through which I can help people live more harmoniously.”

He contends that "when you take art as an industry and produce to sell, then there is some money to make from it, but when you do it as a philosophy like I do, then the money is not much.”

He further reveals that all his art pieces are one-off projects. "When I make an art piece I do not repeat it.

Otherwise that would be handcraft, not art.”

His long-term ambition is "to live in peace with people in my village and to support them.”