Paintings by seven Rwandan artists were presented in the City of Novi Sad’s gallery Mali Likovni Salon at the exhibition "We, the future”. The second largest city in Serbia, Novi Sad, is among the first cities outside the European Union to be declared the European Capital of Culture. The main purpose of the city’s programme concept is to position Novi Sad as a city that connects citizens and artists, cultural institutions, associations and organisations, both nationally and internationally.

Exhibition at the Mali Likovni Salon gallery was curated by Ilija Gubic and Vivaldi Ngenzi, organised by the City of Novi Sad Cultural Center with the support from Rwanda Art Museum and Center "Structure”. The exhibition was followed by videos directed by Bojan Josic that showed artists in their studios in Kigali, presenting their work, and by a catalogue. Research that was done for the exhibition, is also contributing to the efforts by the Rwanda Art Museum to analyse and document its collection of contemporary art.

The exhibition showed a painting by Guy Karangwa Omega (1959-1999) "The Man with the Mask” that depicts a human figure with oversized hands and feet wearing a traditional African mask over his face. Such a depiction of man can be read as an author’s praise of the contemporary art that has direct references in the traditional art in the region. Rwanda Art Museum has 10 works by Karangwa Omega that are part of the permanent collection.

The exhibition in Novi Sad had two paintings by Floride Mukabageni, who is among the first women to graduate from the Nyundo School of Art and Music. She paints with a harmonised palette and simplified geometry, showing figures in different positions to illustrate traditional habits such as the dance or specific beverage drinking process.

When Doroteja Lovre, an artist from Novi Sad, visited the exhibition, she particularly liked works by Mukabageni as "it is so obvious that the painting is made by a woman, lines and colours are so soft.”

At the exhibition, a young generation of Rwandan artists such as Benjamin Rusagara, Brave "Tangz” Rumariza, Isaac Iirumva, and Christian King Dusabe, showed portraits of their fellow citizens that are more "exploratory” than realistic. In Irumva’s work, the expressiveness of strokes and colours counterbalances the reduced forms of accentuated contour lines, while Dusabe’s sophisticated, recognisable work is based on detailed modelling of human figures, precise drawing and a purely compositional solution of scenes. Exhibition visitor Aleksandar Spasojevic commented on Dusabe’s work, "I like the works by Dusabe the most, his drawing is so precise, and the additional work with oil colours is simply stunning.” 

The exhibition also showed a painting by Rwandan-Ugandan artist Collin Sekajugo, founder of Ivuka Arts Gallery in Kigali. Interestingly, as the audience in Novi Sad was enjoying Sekajugo’s art, he was awarded at the Venice Biennale for his work at the Ugandan Pavilion.

When visiting the exhibition, Nigerian artist Daniel "Pengrapher” Oshundaro, studying art in Novi Sad with the "World in Serbia” scholarship, said, "It was a stunning experience to see how artists from Rwanda breakthrough from the norm and portray rebirth.”

Indeed, the paintings coming from Rwanda are full of colour, representing intimate testimonies of the everyday hopes, fears and longings of the people in the community that the authors portray. Using selective details, the authors bring the figures to life and make them universal, further providing an opportunity for different narratives.