In what London, U.K-based
October Gallery describes as Eddy Kamuanga Ilunga’s
current series themed Mangbetu, the Congolese artist explores struggle
of the Mangbetu people, an ethnic group of warrior extraction in the Democratic
Republic of Congo (DRC), whose culture, like most African countries, is facing
modernisation challenges.
Currently ongoing, the show which is the
artist’s first at the gallery and debut solo in the U.K, specifically
references modern industry and the traditional culture of the Mangbetu,
bringing their vibrant fabrics, symbolic objects and daily rituals into
confrontation with the digital imagery of modern day. The gallery views his
paintings as possessing a monumental quality that is both heroic and elegiac,
with a striking and sophisticated interplay of intensity and emptiness, two and
three dimensions, and Congolese pattern painted as European drapery.
The DRC is the world’s
largest exporter of coltan, a raw material used in computer chips and mobile
phones.
October Gallery notes that Ilunga is one of
the most exciting young artists working in Africa today. Born in the Democratic
Republic of Congo in 1991, he trained at the Kinshasa Academy of Arts and has
founded the dynamic Congolese art collective ‘M’Pongo’,
representative of the creative vibrancy to be found in modern Kinshasa.
Ilunga’s work has been
exhibited across Africa, notably at Dak’Art; Biennale OFF
Senegal in 2014, and made its London debut at the Saatchi Gallery’s
Panagaea II in 2015. The enormous excitement around the 24-year-old artist at
London’s 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair in 2015 and at
New York’s Armory Show in 2016 was compounded by an article in
the FT’s How to Spend It, which employed his work ‘Lost’
to represent The Best of New York Armory 2016.
Born in 1991, Kinshasa, Democratic Republic
of Congo. Lives and works in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo
Eddy
Kamuanga Ilunga graduated from the Institute of Fine Art, Kinshasa in 2009. He
then joined the Academy of Fine Arts, Kinshasa but soon sought emancipation
from the Academy in establishing the studio "M'Pongo", a collective
of young artists in Kinshasa looking for a creative and individual style. At the same time he took part in several
exhibitions in the DRC and abroad, including an exhibition at the French
Institute Gallery, Brazzaville, Congo, and Dak'Art OFF, Dak'Art: The Biennale
of Contemporary African Art, Senegal, 2014.
Kamuanga draws from
the structural complexity of his hometown and revisits the traditional culture
of the Mangbetu people. Referencing different forms of advertising and
photography as well as traditional aesthetics, his paintings are an amalgam of
complementary pop cultural forms, including music, fashion and dance. They
offer an intelligent approach to popular culture by exposing the anxieties and
joys of his contemporaries. He has exhibited most recently at Saatchi Gallery,
London as part of Pangaea II.
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