Dieu Donne Habiyaremye is a 23-year-old artist specialised in digital art and acrylic painting on canvas. At the age of 10, he often volunteered to help teachers draw diagrams on the blackboard, and he enjoyed doing it. His peers soon began asking him to help whenever any drawing assignment was given. Once his mother discovered that he was drawing and cut an exercise book into two pieces so he could practice fully without spoiling his school books. Habiyaremye however, didn’t face it easy at school as some teachers thought drawing was a waste of time andf was even punished for it. His drawing skills were enhanced, mostly in digital art and traditional paintings, when he joined Ecole d’arts Nyundo for secondary. Today, he believes, art has given him a platform to help change society with his talent. The youngster is of the view that art is a creative way in which he communicates something meaningful to society. “I feel like with drawing, the message can be understood simply and accessed easily. With my work, there is always an inspiration, like that force that pushes me into doing that. My inspiration is mainly derived from music. I listen to music that I even picture some of the lyrics into images that I paint. With that, I work on the idea of researching the topic I am working on,” he says. His work portrays beauty and happiness, he says. With the ideas he sketches on his canvas, primes it and starts the drawing. He doesn’t do so well with silence while drawing. If not listening to music, he is stimulated by people that keep him engaged in conversations. Most of his work is marketed on social media especially Instagram on ‘habiy arts.’ Though he earns from his art talent, he is discouraged that the materials are still a challenge as they are imported.
