During a press conference held at the headquarters of African Queen, the distributers of BIC stationery, lighters and shavers, BIC officially handed over 500 USD to Kansiime Brian, a Makerere University Business School (MUBS) fresh graduate who emerged as the People’s Choice winner in BIC’s continent-wide Art Master Africa competition 2019.
Kansiime emerged as the continent’s People’s Choice winner, chosen by online voters for his piece titled ‘Life”, which depicts the true definition of a young girl’s happiness. Today, Kansiime received 500 USD and a BIC Artistry.
‘Black Lion’ a half-man, half-lion portrait by artist Fatiou Aboudou was named the overall winner of 2019 BIC Art Master Africa Competition. The original piece took 250 hours to complete and was drawn using only black BIC Crystal Medium ballpoint pens.
The BIC Art Master Competition was first held in South Africa in 2017 and following its success, it expanded to include all African countries in 2019. The creative Artwork was chosen from 5,242 entries submitted by more than 2,400 artists from 47 African countries on the competitions’ dedicated website BICArtMaster.com.
Black Lion was chosen for its creativity and originality by a panel of experts and is set to become part of ’La Collection BIC’, the company’s official art collection. Aboudou was awarded the grand prize of 1,000 USD and a personalized gallery to showcase his artwork.
Today’s presser was graced by Paloma Lengema, the Marketing Manager, BIC East Africa. Lengema congratulated Kansiime before handing over his 500 USD dummy cheque, cash, as well as a BIC Artistry.
Commenting on the success of the competition, Peter Van den Broeck, General Manager, Middle East Africa said that Africa is a big time inspiration in talent and creativity.
“Africa is undoubtfully rich in inspiration, talent and creativity. We were very impressed with the submissions we received and the beautiful work that was produced using only BIC’s ballpoint pens. BIC has a longstanding history with art, and we are proud to have established a platform that helps recognize and shed a stronger light on artistic talent in Africa. We thank all the talented artists who took part in the 2019 BIC Art Master Africa competition as well as all the fans who voted for their favorite artwork.” Broeck said.
Watch the video below to find out why Kansiime chose art for a career instead of concentrating on what he studied;