BUJUMBURA, March 19th (ABP) – Burundian artists, designers, and painters resort to the foreign sales market due to a lack of local customers, but their works are not as valued because they lack government support, Béni Samson Uwimana (Samson-art), a Burundian artist, designer, and painter, told a check by ABP during an interview on Monday, March 17, 2025.
According to the artist, apart from Burundians who have lived abroad, the Burundian population does not value works of art, which means that local artists can barely find sales markets for their works. Once completed, the works end up in storage due to a lack of customers, causing considerable losses for the artists.
Uwimana indicated that to address this challenge, Burundian artists are trying to sell their works on the foreign market, but they also face another challenge: their works are not valued due to a lack of support from their countries of origin.
According to him, no artwork by local artists can be valued on the foreign market without government support. According to him, the Burundian government should follow the example of other East African countries in supporting and promoting the artwork of local artists, especially regarding the sales market.
Uwimana also stated that, aside from the lack of a sales market, Burundian painters and designers face challenges related to the lack of professional art materials, which are rarely available in Burundi. Once available, artists purchase them at high price, which pushes them to increase the price of their works, and this generates discontent among their clients.
Uwimana also noted that certain reasons prevent the artwork of Burundian painters from competing with those of foreign artists, including the use of poor-quality paint that cannot last 20 years before losing quality and becoming damaged. He indicates that the original oil-tube paintings come from Congo; Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya, and recommends that traders import them to make it easier for artists to find them. He also deplores the quality of the canvases used in Burundi, which he considers local and, according to him, needs to be improved.
According to him, for Burundian painting to compete with that of other countries on the foreign market, the government has a crucial role in supporting artists by providing them with modern materials and financial resources, but above all, by accompanying and presenting these artists abroad to show foreigners the value it places on them.
He also advised the Burundian population to love and buy local works to encourage these artists, emphasizing that buying a work of art is not just for decoration, but also a long-term investment. “The painting does not age. The older it is, the more its value increases,” said Uwimana, adding that a work of art represents a story and that the price of the painting depends on the artist’s fame.