Augustin
Augustin is a painter working in Kigali. Drawing came long before canvas, on whatever surface was to hand, and the painting that followed has been largely self-taught: learned slowly, picture by picture, by looking hard and being willing to start again.
The work moves between two kinds of picture. There are portraits, where a face or a posture carries a question about grace, identity and the distance between private calm and public presentation; and there are abstractions and cityscapes, where colour does the speaking and the light of Kigali at dusk is never far away. Acrylic, oil and, now and then, gold leaf are built up in layers on textured canvas, so that a surface can be read from across the room and again from a hand's breadth away.
Everything is made in the studio in Kigali. Each painting is an original, made once, and is finished only when it stops asking for more.
