Papy Tamba Pambu

About

Papy Tamba Pambu, addressed in Kinshasa’s art world as Maître Tamba, started with childhood sketches before sculpture became his calling. His father supervised his early training at the Académie des Beaux-Arts de Kinshasa. Sculpture itself came through a second gate: his uncle, an established sculptor with his own atelier, would only take him on as an apprentice once he had proven himself at the academy first.

Iron is his material, worked into stripes with deliberate gaps between them. Where the gaps might read as empty, Tamba treats them as carrying their own weight, a balance held between the metal and the room left around it. He talks about the pieces the way a storyteller or a philosopher would, built to hold up under a longer look than most sculpture asks for.

Tamba mentors as well as sculpts, and his clearest case is Simplus Ntoto, who trained under him and went on to win the medal for Congo’s best sculptor. That relationship became a partnership: in 2023 the two founded Sculpture Libende Today together. Libende is Lingala for metal or iron, and the collective’s practice matches the name, collecting scrap metal, discarded vehicles, and other metal waste from around Kinshasa and turning it into sculpture, artistic work the two founders describe as civic as well, addressing the city’s waste alongside its art scene. Libende Today debuted in September 2023 with an exhibition at the Académie des Beaux-Arts, the school where both founders trained, and now runs competitions that give younger sculptors a platform and a prize. Tamba also leads a second initiative, L’Eveil des Sculpteurs, an association built around training and recognition for the country’s sculptors.

His counsel to younger sculptors stays close to what got him into his uncle’s atelier in the first place: sincerity, dedication, and an understanding of what the work costs.

This page gathers Tamba’s work in one place online. The portfolio is below.

Portfolio