As part of the sale devoted to Modern and Contemporary African Art on Wednesday, June, 24, 2020, PIASA is renewing its partnership with Aspire Auction in order to offer collectors a selection of the most emblematic artists of the African scene, including the Congolese painter Eddy Kamuanga.
A former student of the Kinshasa Academy of Fine Arts, Kumuanga quickly abandoned the restraints of the institution’s classical European teaching. His training has nevertheless allowed him to acquire techniques and a curiosity for experimentation that enabled him to develop his own unique style of art making.
Taking part in the development of the vibrant new Kinshasa art scene, Kamuanga set- up, with other artists, the M’Pongo studio. In his work, Kumuanga questions the erasure of traditional culture during, and as a result of, the colonial period in his country. He depicts the figures as emotionless characters, as orphans of their own culture and foreign to their ritual objects.
Kumuanga emphasises the need to find oneself. After being the supplier of ivory, rubber and metals, the DRC is today the world's largest exporter of coltan, a raw material used in computer chips and mobile phones. The exploitation of people and the consequences thereof is personified and visible in the rendering of the figures, draped in fabrics (signifying globalization and international trade) which is reminiscent of Renaissance paintings. Through this visual link, Kumuanga combines the (Western) history of the world and that of the Congo.
Eddy Kamuanga (born 1991, Democratic Republic of the Congo)
2018
Oil on canvas
Signed and dated on the top part of the canvas
204 x 184 cm
The work offered for sale on Wednesday, June, 24, 2020 is a large-format work measuring more than two meters in height. Produced in 2018, it is estimated at between 30,000 and 50,000 euros.
