Phinet Kisimba paints what he calls la mathématique du temps, and in Sala Po Ozala (2021, oil on canvas, 90 by 160 centimeters) he paints it as a clock face with a young Kinois standing inside it: white shirt, polished shoes, both pockets pulled inside out. In a short video, he says what the picture asks of Kinshasa’s youth: be true, and let time testify.
Glory Kanga calls himself an artiste classicien écologiste and has committed his painting entirely to the bond between man and the environment. In Recours à la Tradition (acrylic on canvas, 150 by 130 centimeters), a man woven from strips of wood bends over a steaming basin, head under a cloth. In a short video, Kanga explains the likeness of life that holds the painting together.
Junior Bile photographs the children of Kinshasa’s quartiers populaires, paints them, and covers their skin in stenographic script he calls vows, prayers, and scars. In a short video, he explains the method and the thinking behind La Croyance dans l’Ombre (2022), oil and acrylic on canvas.
Meet the Artwork is a new series on single works of Congolese art. Each entry pairs one piece with its maker’s own account of what it is and why it exists. We begin with Exprime-Toi, a 2023 acrylic by Sarah Ndangi Bunga, a painting about fear, music, and learning to speak in front of other people.
Spend an afternoon in the galleries of Kinshasa and you begin to recognize the same woman. She is on one wall, then the next, then the gallery down the street, the ornament changed each time, the face never. She has no name on the wall, and no one expects her to. She is a type, and the type sells. Many of these faces were traced from photographs of women who never agreed to sit, then sold as original work. No one has asked the woman behind the painting who she is.
Join us in exploring the profound world of Grand Maître Chéri Chérin, a pivotal figure whose legacy transcends his art to shape Congolese culture. Through an insightful interview, we explore the life of Chérin, the visionary mentor behind “Peinture Populaire.” His influence, from Kinshasa’s studios to the international scene, highlights his role in nurturing talents and pioneering a movement. Discover Chérin’s journey, challenges, and triumphs, revealing how his commitment to mentorship and art is crafting a future for new generations. Dive into the essence of Chéri Chérin’s enduring impact
On World Art Day we visited the painter Billy Gibula in his studio in Masina, Kinshasa. He told us how a street drawing led him to his mentor, why he left that studio to find his own style, what the masks and birds in his paintings mean, and what young painters in Kinshasa are up against.
From history painters working with colonial-era restrictions to modern visionaries crafting Afrofuturistic dreamscapes, Congolese artists have long been revolutionaries with a brush. Meet thirteen painters who transformed limitations into liberation: Tshibumba Kanda-Matulu, who dared to paint Congo’s painful history under Mobutu’s watchful eye; Chéri Samba, whose neon-bright satires caught the world’s attention; Pilipili Mulongoy, who turned colonial constraints into masterpieces of motion; and Monsengo Shula, who dresses astronauts in traditional pagne as they drift through cosmic realms.
Yet this is more than just a journey through Congo’s artistic past—it’s a gateway to its future. As we at Kitokongo scour Kinshasa’s vibrant neighborhoods and beyond, we’re discovering the next generation of visionaries, artists who are redefining what Congolese art can be. Join us in exploring not just who these painters were and are, but who they’re becoming. Because in Congo, every artwork is both a survival story and a revolution waiting to happen.