TONY BAKATUBIA, the founder of KAGAMAN Studio, is motivated to impact society through raising awareness using art and training young artists to craft better artworks. When training them, he said, he first looks at the level at which the artists are, and see if passion transpires from their drawings before he starts teaching them about the fundamentals of drawing regardless of their education in art schools since he believes that art can be relearnt as many times as possible. The self-taught visual artist grew up watching Japanese animations such as Dragon Ball and Naruto, and loved reading comics. Tey inspired him from a very young age since he was an introverted child who spent his days drawing in his room. In 2013 when he was in high school, he made a life goal to make art for a living. He said that he kept learning every day and every hour, adding that his skills are a result of long hours of hard work and many sacrifices. “I only make a living from my art. I may say that my being is only constituted of two things; God and art,” he said. “One of the things I am always focused on when working is how I can communicate a message as effectively as possible through facial expression, body pose, colour and composition. In a sense, I am a storyteller who loves communicating through panels and pages.” Bakatubia has worked on many projects locally and abroad and has illustrated a number of childrens and comic books as well as illustrations. His popular works are comic books like the SDGs comic book in collaboration with Shabani Bizimana for the FES Rwanda (The Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung) and the Ndabaga Concept Art as well as Ngunda children book and animation video. According to him, the visual industry in Rwanda is growing fast with more young visual artists though he believes there is still a lot to work on, improve and create. His biggest challenge is that he is striving to make many works at the same time which gets hard, though he feels like he can do more to help and create a positive impact to the community. He plans to create more fictional characters that can impact society regarding environmental and social issues that people are facing since he believes that fiction is a great tool to change people’s lives for the better. For more information, you can email me tonybakatubia@gmail.com or call +250781485391 or Instagram at Tony Bakatubia.
